ULU  C      I    •    lO 


^^a«u^ 


3    TliSB    00Db330E    b 


.-  ^ 


\-A 


Speeches  of 
The  Flying  Squadron 


Edited  by 
J,     Frank     IIanly 
Oliver  Wayne  Stewart 


Published  by 

J.     Frank     Hanly 

Oliver  Wayne  Stewart 

Daniel  A.  Poling 

Ira  Landrith 


m 


DISTRIBUTION     AGENTS 

HANLY      &      STEWART 

707    Odd    Fellow    Building 
Indianapolis,  Indiana 


Discarc{ad  CS^ 


COPYRIGHTED 

J.    FRANK    HANLY 

OLIVER   W.    STEWART 

DANIEL   A.    POLING 

IRA   LANDRITH 

PUBLISHERS 


THB    A«T    PRB8S.   INDIANAPOLIS 


I 

n 


DEDICATED 

TO  THE 

THOUSANDS  OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN  WHOSE  LIBERALITY 

AND  CONSECRATION  MADE  THE  SQUADRON 

CAMPAIGN  POSSIBLE 


■Uu72i; 


INDEX 

PAGE 

BOOLE,  ELLA  A. 

Biography        245 

Patriotic  Problems 247 

CHAFIN,  EUGENE  W. 

Biography        379 

Extracts  From  Addresses 381 

GEISEL,  CAROLYN  E. 

A  Woman's  Appeal 391 

Biography        389 

Woman's  Business — Man  Raising 407 

HANLY,  J.  FRANK 

Biography        23 

Fallacies    Exposed 57 

I  Hate  It 27 

Moral  Yearnings  and  Rural  Communities        81 

Parties  To  The  Issue 87 

Our  Climacteric  Opportunity 89 

Tell  The  Truth       55 

The  Trial  of  John   Barleycorn 29 

Why  The  Liquor  Traffic  Still  Exists 45 

HARDING,  REV.  U.  E. 

Benediction 95 

HOWARD,  CLINTON  N. 

An  Organized  Outlaw 235 

Biography        227 

Prohibition  and  Personal  Liberty 229 

The  Outlaw  Indicted 239 

INTRODUCTORY    7 

ITINERARY 13 

LANDRITH,  IRA 

A  Message  From  The  New  South 211 

Biography         197 

Landrith  Laconics 221 

The  Three-fold  Mission  of  the  Flying  Squadron     ....  199 


INDEX 

PAGE 

LEWIS,  JOHN  B. 

Biography        •     •     •. ^73 

The  Spirit  of   Patriotism 375 

POLING,  DANIEL  A. 

Biography        153 

Mothers  of  Men 167 

The  Challenge  of  Patriotism 155 

The  Dawn  of  National  Prohibition 183 

SCANLON,   CHARLES 

Biography        323 

Liquor   vs.    Business       325 

SHELDON,  CHARLES  M. 

Biography        265 

For  A  Better  World 271 

Why  National  Prohibition? 267 

SHERIDAN,  WILBUR  FLETCHER 

Biography        .    .    .     .    » 337 

Unexpected    Re-enforcements       339 

STEWART,  ELLA  SEASS 

Biography        133 

The  Light  From  The  Hearthstone 135 

STEWART,  OLIVER  W. 

A   Political   Prophecy 125 

Biography        99 

The  Case  Against  The  Saloon 101 

The  Saloon  Versus  Business 119 

Two   Forces Ill 

VAYHINGER,  CULLA  J. 

Biography        355 

The  Liquor  Traffic  A  Challenge  To  The  Christian  Church  357 

WILSON,  CLARENCE  TRUE 

Biography        283 

Pot  Shots  At  Liquor  Fallacies 285 


We  stand  for  the  abolition  of  the  liquor  traffic. 
On  this  issue  we  fight. 


WHENEVER  A  POLITICIAN  OR  AN  EXECUTIVE 
OFFICER,  OR  A  POLITICAL  PARTY  PREFERS  THE 
LIQUOR  TRAFFIC  ABOVE  THE  PUBLIC  MORALS, 
SUCH  MEN  MUST  BE  SET  ASIDE  AND  SUCH 
PARTIES  ABANDONED.  TO  THE  ACCOMPLISH- 
MENT OF  THIS  HIGH  PURPOSE  WE  DEDICATE 
OURSELVES. 


INTRODUCTION 


THE  speeches  contained  in  this  volume  were  delivered 
in  the  white  heat  of  the  great  campaign  of  the  Fly- 
ing Squadron  of  America — a  campaign  which  touched 
two  hundred  and  fifty-five  cities,  embracing  every  capital 
city,  every  large  city,  and  every  educational  center. 

They  came  from  the  lips  of  men  and  women  who  had 
resolved  in  their  hearts  that  the  American  people  should 
hear  their  messages,  without  regard  to  the  cost  to  the 
speakers  in  time,  effort  or  money. 

The  campaign  began  on  Wednesday,  September  30,  1914, 
at  Peoria,  Illinois,  and  closed  at  Atlantic  City,  N.  J.,  on 
Sunday,  June  6,  1915,  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  days  of 
actual  speaking  and  traveling,  without  a  date  or  place  being 
missed. 

The  Squadron  consisted  of  three  groups  of  speakers, 
singers  and  musicians,  who  visited  each  city  on  successive 
days ;  thus  on  any  day  three  cities  heard  the  messages  at 
the  same  time. 

Two  meetings  were  held  each  day, — afternoon  and  even- 
ing. Occasionally  two  cities  were  visited  by  each  group  in 
a  day,  which  made  it  possible  for  speakers  to  reach  two 
hundred  and  fifty-five  cities  in  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  days. 

These  addresses  were  heard  by  a  million  people. 

Since  time  began,  there  has  been  no  campaign  like  it. 
The  Nation  was  turned  into  a  great  university  as  this 
movable  faculty  went  from  place  to  place  instructing  the 
people  as  to  the  facts  and  principles  by  which  the  problem 
of  the  liquor  traffic  is  to  be  solved. 

The  reader  will  note  that  these  addresses  do  not  smell 
of  midnight  oil.  They  do  not  carry  the  musty  odor  of  the 
cloister.  There  is  no  effort  to  achieve  theatrical  effect. 
They  hit  straight  from  the  shoulder.  They  were  delivered 
by  men  and  women  who  were  going  somewhere  and  knew 
why  and  how  they  were  going. 

[9] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

He,  who  reads,  should  remember  that  they  who  spoke, 
spent  weary  nights  on  trains  or  were  called  at  unpleas- 
antly early  hours  in  order  to  get  to  the  "next"  place,  for 
towns  and  cities  came  thick  and  fast. 

Speakers  do  not  remain  long  at  such  task,  unless  they 
come  to  it  with  the  spirit  of  love  and  devotion.  In  such 
spirit  came  those  whose  thoughts  take  permanent  form 
in  the  pages  of  this  book. 

Those  who  heard  the  addresses  delivered  will  read  them 
with  renewed  interest.  Those  who  had  not  that  pleasure 
will,  as  they  read,  understand  why  in  many  cities  ministers 
and  others  pronounced  the  visit  of  the  Squadron  the  equal 
to  a  religious  revival  in  moral  force  and  power. 

Some  of  the  speakers  were  able  to  continue  but  a  few 
weeks;  some  went  the  full  journey  from  the  first  place  to 
the  last.  Each  brought  to  the  public  a  message  which  was 
distinct,  unique  and  forceful,  for  each  put  himself  into  his 
message.  There  was  not  a  speaker  on  the  Squadron  who 
was  not  aflame  with  a  consuming  passion  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  saloon. 

The  campaign  they  made  is  history.  The  record  cannot 
be  changed.     There  it  stands. 

Here  are  the  addresses  it  gave  to  the  American  people 
on  behalf  of  this  great  cause.  Those  who  delivered  them 
placed  on  the  altar  that  which  money  could  not  buy — 
health,  long  separation  from  home  and  loved  ones,  nerve 
force  and  power,  time  and  zeal. 

Only  in  the  distant  future,  "where  beyond  these  voices 
there  is  peace,"  will  the  world  be  able  to  make  a  correct 
estimate  of  their  contribution  to  the  present  struggle  to 
rid  the  Nation  of  the  saloon. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  weaker  and  all  righteous  forces  are 
stronger  since  these  addresses  were  delivered. 


[101 


WHERE  MADE 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


Wednesday  30, 

September 
Thursday  1, 
Friday  2, 
Saturday  3, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday  6, 

Wednesday  7, 
Thursdays, 
Saturday  10, 
Friday  9, 
Saturday  10, 
Sunday  11, 
Monday  12, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  IS, 
Friday  16, 
Sunday  18, 
Saturday  17, 
Sunday  18, 
Monday  19, 
Tuesday  20, 
Wednesday  21, 

Thursday  22, 
Friday  23, 
Saturday  24, 
Sunday  25, 
Monday  26, 
Tuesday  27, 
Wednesday  28, 
Thursday  29, 
Friday  30, 

Saturday  31, 


OCTOBER,  1914 
Thursday  1,         Friday  2, 


Friday  2, 
Saturday  3, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday   6, 
Wednesday  7, 

Thursdays, 
Friday  9, 

Saturday  10, 
Sunday  11, 
Monday  12, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  15, 
Friday  16, 
Saturday  17, 

Sunday  18, 
Monday  19, 
Tuesday  20, 
Wednesday  21, 
Thursday  22, 

Friday  23, 
Saturday  24, 
Sunday  25, 
Monday  26, 
Tuesday  27, 
Wednesday  2S, 
Thursday  29, 
Friday  30, 
Saturday  31, 

Sunday  1, 
November 


Saturday  3, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday  6, 
Wednesday  7, 
Thursdays, 

Friday  9, 
Saturday  10, 

Sunday  11, 
Monday  12, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  15, 
Friday  16, 
Saturday  17, 
Sunday  18, 

Monday  19, 
Tuesday  20, 
Wednesday  21, 
Thursday  22, 
Friday  23, 

Saturday  24, 

Sunday  25, 

Monday  26, 

Tuesday  27, 

Wednesday  28, 

Thursday  29, 

Friday  30, 

Saturday  31, 

Sunday  1, 
November 

Monday  2, 
November 


Peoria,  111. 

Galesburg,  111. 
Kansas  City,  Mo. 
Wichita,  Kans. 
Oklahoma  City,  Okla. 
Forth  Worth,  Tex. 
(afternoon  only) 
Abilene,  Tex. 
El  Paso,  Tex. 
Phoenix,  Ariz. 
Tempe,  Ariz. 
Tucson,  Ariz. 
San  Bernardino,  Cal. 
Los  Angeles,  Cal. 
San  Diego,  Cal. 
Pasadena,  Cal. 
San  Jose,  Cal. 
Oakland,  Cal. 
San  Francisco,  Cal. 
Berkeley,  Cal. 
Stockton,  Cal. 
Sacramento,  Cal. 
Carson  City,  Nev. 
Reno,  Nev. 
(evening  only) 
Red  Bluff,  Cal. 
Roseburg,  Ore. 
Portland,  Ore. 
Salem,  Ore. 
Seattle,  Wash. 
Everett,  Wash. 
Olympia,  Wash. 
Tacoma,  Wash. 
North  Yakima,  Wash. 
Spokane,  Wash. 

Helena,  Mont. 


[13] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


NOVEMBER,  1914 


Sunday  1,  Monday  2, 

Monday  2,  Tuesday  3, 

Tuesdays,  Wednesday  4, 

Wednesday  4,  Thursdays, 

Thursday  5,  Friday  6, 

Thursday  5,  Friday  6, 


Friday  6, 
Saturday  7, 
Saturday  7, 
Sundays, 
Monday  9, 
Tuesday  10, 
Tuesday  10, 
Wednesday  11, 
Thursday  12, 
Saturday  14, 
Friday  13, 
Saturday  14, 
Sunday  15, 
Monday  16, 
Tuesday  17, 
Wednesday  18, 
Thursday  19, 
Friday  20, 
Saturday  21, 
Sunday  22, 
Monday  23, 
Tuesday  24, 
Wednesday  25, 
Thursday  26, 
Friday  27, 
Saturday  28, 
Sunday  29, 

Monday  30, 


Saturday  7, 
Sunday  8, 
Sunday  8, 
Monday  9, 
Tuesday  10, 
Wednesday  11, 

Thursday  12, 
Friday  13, 

Saturday  14, 
Sunday  15, 
Monday  16, 
Tuesday  17, 
Wednesday  18, 
Thursday  19, 
Friday  20, 
Saturday  21, 
Sunday  22, 
Monday  23, 
Tuesday  24, 
Wednesday  25, 
Thursday  26, 
Friday  27, 
Saturday  28, 
Sunday  29, 
Monday  30, 

Tuesday  1, 
December 


Tuesday  3, 
Wednesday  4, 
Thursday  5, 
Friday  6, 

Saturday  7, 

Saturday  7, 

Sundays, 
Monday  9, 
Monday  9, 
Tuesday  10, 
Wednesday  11, 
Thursday  12, 

Friday  13, 
Saturday  14, 

Sunday  15, 

Monday  16, 

Tuesday  17, 

Wednesday  18, 

Thursday  19, 

Friday  20, 

Saturday  21, 

Sunday  22, 

Monday  23, 

Tuesday  24, 

Wednesday  25, 

Thursday  26, 

Friday  27, 

Saturday  28, 

Sunday  29, 

Monday  30, 

Tuesday  1, 
December 

Wednesday  2, 
Decenaber 


Butte,  Mont. 

Bozeman,  Mont. 

Billings,  Mont. 

(evening  only) 

Bismarck,  N.  D. 

(evening  only) 

Fargo,  N.  D. 

(evening  only) 

Moorehead,  S.  D. 

Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Duluth,  Minn. 

Superior,  Wis. 

St.  Paul,  Minn. 

Aberdeen,  S.  D. 

Pierre,  S.D. 

Ft.  Pierre,  S.D. 

Sioux  Falls,  S.  D. 

Sioux  City,  Iowa. 

Ida  Grove,  Iowa. 
Omaha,  Neb. 
Lincoln.  Neb. 
Council  Bluffs,  Iowa. 
Iowa  City,  Iowa. 
Joliet,Ill. 
Aurora,  111. 
Elgin,  III. 
Milwaukee,  Wis. 
Grand  Rapids,  Mich. 
Detroit,  Mich. 
Toledo,  Ohio. 
Erie,  Pa. 
Rochester,  N.  Y. 
Troy,  N.  Y. 
Boston,  Mass. 
Worcester,  Mass. 
Lowell,  Mass. 

Manchester,  N.  H. 


[14] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


DECEMBER,  1914 


Tuesday  1, 
Wednesday  2, 
Thursday  3, 
Friday  4, 
Saturday  5, 
Sunday  6, 
Monday  7, 
Tuesdays, 
Wednesday  9, 
Thursday  10, 
Friday  11, 
Saturday  12, 
Sunday  13, 
Monday  14, 
Tuesday  15, 
Wednesday  16, 
Thursday  17, 
Friday  18, 


Wednesday  2, 
Thursday  3, 
Friday  4, 
Saturday  5, 
Sunday  6, 
Monday  7, 
Tuesdays, 
Wednesday  9, 
Thursday  10, 
Friday  11, 
Saturday  12, 
Sunday  13, 
Monday  14, 
Tuesday  15, 
Wednesday  16, 
Thursday  17, 
Friday  IS, 
Saturday  19, 


Thursday  3, 
Friday  4, 
Saturday  5, 
Sunday  6, 
Monday  7, 
Tuesdays, 
Wednesday  9, 
Thursday  10, 
Friday  11, 
Saturday  12, 
Sunday  13, 
Monday  14, 
Tuesday  15, 
Wednesday  16, 
Thursday  17, 
Friday  18, 
Saturday  19, 
Sunday  20, 


Haverhill,  Mass. 
Providence,  R.  I. 
New  Haven,  Conn. 
Brooklyn,  N.Y. 
Paterson,  N.J. 
Newark,  N.J. 
Yonkers,N.  Y. 
Waterbury,  Conn. 
Bridgeport,  Conn. 
Chester,  Pa. 
Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Washington,  D.  C. 
Baltimore,  Md. 
Annapolis,  Md. 
Johnstown,  Pa. 
Altoona,  Pa. 
Wheeling,  W.Va. 
Cincinnati,  O. 


JANUARY,  1915 


Friday  1, 
Saturday  2, 
Sunday  3, 
Monday  4, 
Tuesday  5, 
Wednesday  6, 
Thursday  7, 
Fridays, 
Saturday  9, 
Sunday  10, 
Monday  11, 
Tuesday  12, 
Wednesday  13, 
Wednesday  13, 
Thursday  14, 
Friday  15, 
Saturday  16, 


Saturday  2, 
Sunday  3, 
Monday  4, 
Tuesday  5, 
Wednesday  6, 
Thursday  7, 
Friday  S, 
Saturday  9, 
Sunday  10, 
Monday  11, 
Tuesday  12, 
Wednesday  13, 
Thursday  14, 
Thursday  14, 
Friday  15, 
Saturday  16, 
Sunday  17, 


Sunday  3, 
Monday  4, 
Tuesday  5, 
Wednesday  6, 
Thursday  7, 
Fridays, 
Saturday  9, 
Sunday  10, 
Monday  11, 
Tuesday  12, 
Wednesday  13, 
Thursday  14, 
Friday  15, 
Friday  15, 
Saturday  16, 
Sunday  17, 
Monday  IS, 


Evansville,  Ind. 
Terre  Haute,  Ind. 
Danville,  111. 
Champaigne,  111. 
Lincoln,  111. 
Decatur,  111. 
Racine,  Wis. 
Chicago,  111. 
Winona,  Minn. 
Dubuque,  Iowa. 
Rockford,  111. 
South  Bend,  Ind. 
Elkhart,  Ind. 
Goshen,  Ind. 
Kalamazoo,  Mich. 
Battle  Creek,  Mich. 
Lansing,  Mich. 


[15] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


Sunday  17, 
Monday  18, 
Tuesday  19, 
Wednesday  20, 
Thursday  21, 
Friday  22, 
Saturday  23, 
Sunday  24, 
Monday  25, 
Tuesday  26, 
Wednesday  27, 
Thursday  28, 
Friday  29, 
Saturday  30, 

Sunday  31, 


Monday  18, 
Tuesday  19, 
Wednesday  20, 
Thursday  21, 
Friday  22, 
Saturday  23, 
Sunday  24, 
Monday  25, 
Tuesday  26, 
Wednesday  27, 
Thursday  28, 
Friday  29, 
Saturday  30, 
Sunday  31, 

Monday  1, 
February 


Tuesday  19, 

Wednesday  20, 

Thursday  21, 

Friday  22, 

Saturday  23, 

Sunday  24, 

Monday  25, 

Tuesday  26, 

Wednesday  27, 

Thursday  28, 

Friday  29, 

Saturday  30, 

Sunday  31, 

Monday  1, 
February 

Tuesday  2, 
February 


Saginaw,  Mich. 
Bay  City,  Mich. 
Flint,  Mich. 
Jackson,  Mich. 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich. 
Buffalo.  N.  Y. 
Rome,  N.  Y. 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Elniira,  N.  Y. 
Williamsport,  Pa. 
Wilkes-Barre.  Pa. 
Binghamton,  N.  Y. 
Scranton,  Pa. 
Allentown,  Pa. 

Reading,  Pa. 


FEBRUARY,  1915 


Monday  1, 
Tuesday  2, 
Wednesday  3, 
Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Alonday  8, 

Wednesday  10, 
Thursday  11, 
Thursday  11, 
Friday  12, 
Saturday  13, 
Sunday  14, 
Monday  15, 
Tuesday  16, 


Tuesday  2, 
Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Mondays, 
Tuesday  9, 

Thursday  11, 
Friday  12, 

Saturday  13, 
Sunday  14, 
Monday  15, 
Tuesday  16, 
Wednesday  17, 
Wednesday  17, 


Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Monday  8, 
Tuesday  9, 
Wednesday  10, 
Wednesday  10, 
Friday  12, 
Saturday  13, 

Sunday  14, 
Monday  15, 
Tuesday  16, 
Wednesday  17, 
Thursday  18, 


Lancaster,  Pa. 
York,  Pa. 
Easton,  Pa. 
Phillipsburg,  N.J. 
New  Brunswick,  N.  J. 
Albany,  N.  Y. 
Rutland,  Vt. 
Burlington,  Vt. 
Montpelier,  Vt. 
Barre,  Vt. 
Portland,  Me. 
Augusta,  Me. 
Bangor,  Me. 
Hartford,  Conn. 
Springfield,  Mass. 
Trenton,  N.  J. 
Dover,  Del. 
Norfolk,  Va. 
Petersburg,  Va. 


[16] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


Wednesday  17, 
Thursday  18, 
Friday  19, 
Saturday  20, 
Sunday  21, 
Sunday  21, 
Monday  22, 
Tuesday  23, 
Wednesday  24, 
Thursday  25, 
Friday  26, 
Saturday  27, 

Sunday  28, 


Thursday  18, 
Friday  19, 
Saturday  20, 
Sunday  21, 
Monday22, 
Monday  22, 
Tuesday  23, 
Wednesday  24, 
Thursday  25, 
Friday  26, 
Saturday  27, 
Sunday  28, 

Monday  1, 
March 


Friday  19, 

Saturday  20, 

Sunday  21, 

Monday  22, 

Tuesday  23, 

Tuesday  23, 

Wednesday  24, 

Thursday  25, 

Friday  26, 

Saturday  27, 

Sunday  28, 

Monday  1, 
March 

Tuesday  2, 
March 


Richmond,  Va. 
Raleigh,  N.  C. 
Wilmington,  N.  C. 
Columbia,  S.  C. 
Charleston,  S.  C. 
Orangeburg,  S.  C. 
Augusta,  Ga. 
Macon,  Ga. 
Savannah,  Ga. 
St.  Augustine,  Fla. 
Palm  Beach,  Fla. 
Miami,  Fla. 

Daytona,  Fla. 


MARCH,  1915 


Monday  1, 
Tuesday  2, 
Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Monday  8, 
Tuesday  9, 
Wednesday  10, 
Thursday  11, 
Friday  12, 
Saturday  13, 
Sunday  14, 
Monday  15, 

Tuesday  16, 
Wednesday  17, 
Thursday  18, 
Friday  19, 
Saturday  20, 


Tuesday  2, 
Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Monday  8, 
Tuesday  9, 
Wednesday  10, 
Thursday  11, 
Friday  12, 
Saturday  13, 
Sunday  14, 
Monday  IS, 
Tuesday  16, 

Wednesday  17, 
Thursday  18, 
Friday  19, 
Saturday  20, 
Sunday  21, 
Sunday  21, 


Wednesday  3, 
Thursday  4, 
Friday  5, 
Saturday  6, 
Sunday  7, 
Monday  8, 
Tuesday  9, 
Wednesday  10, 
Thursday  11, 
Friday  12, 
Saturday  13, 
Sunday  14, 
Monday  15, 
Tuesday  16, 
Wednesday  17, 

Thursday  18, 
Friday  19, 
Saturday  20, 
Sunday  21, 
Monday  22, 
Monday  22, 


Orlando,  Fla. 
Tampa,  Fla. 
St.  Petersburg,  Fla. 
Jacksonville,  Fla. 
Tallahassee,  Fla. 
Pensacola,  Fla. 
Mobile,  Ala. 
Montgomery,  Ala. 
Birmingham,  Ala. 
Atlanta,  Ga. 
Chattanooga,  Tenn. 
Nashville,  Tenn. 
Memphis,  Tenn. 
Little  Rock,  Ark. 
(evening  only) 
Jackson,  Miss. 
Meridian,  Miss. 
Vicksburg,  Miss. 
Baton  Rouge,  La. 
New  Orleans,  La. 
Beaumont,  Tex. 
Port  Arthur,  Tex. 


[171 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


Sunday  21, 
Monday  22, 
Tuesday  23, 
Wednesday  24, 
Thursday  25, 
Friday  26, 
Saturday  27, 
.Sunday  28, 
Monday  29, 
Tuesday  30, 


Monday  22, 
Tuesday  23, 
Wednesday  24, 
Thursday  25, 
Friday  26, 
Saturday  27, 
Sunday  28, 
Monday  29, 
Tuesday  30, 
Wednesday  31, 


Wednesday  31,    Thursday  1, 
April 


Tuesday  23, 
Wednesday  24, 
Thursday  25, 
Friday  26, 
Saturday  27, 
Sunday  28, 
Monday  29, 
Tuesday  30, 
Wednesday  31, 
Thursday  1, 

April 
Friday  2, 

April 


Galveston.  Tex. 
Plouston,  Tex. 
San  Antonio,  Tex. 
Austin,  Tex. 
Waco,  Tex. 
Dallas,  Tex. 
Muskogee,  Okla. 
Topeka,  Kans. 
Rocky  Ford,  Colo. 
Albuquerque,  N.  M. 

SantaFe,  N.  M. 


APRIL,  1915 


Thursday  1, 
Friday  2, 
Saturdays, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday  6, 
Wednesday  7, 

Thursdays, 
Friday  9, 
Sunday  11, 
Monday  12, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  15, 
Friday  16, 
Saturday  17, 
Saturday  17, 
Sunday  18, 
Monday  19, 
Tuesday  20, 
Wednesday  21, 
Thursday  22, 
Friday  23, 


Friday  2, 
Saturday  3, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday  6, 
Wednesday  7, 
Thursdays, 

Friday  9, 
Saturday  10, 
Monday  12, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  15, 
Friday  16, 
Saturday  17, 
Sunday  18, 
Sunday  18, 
Monday  19, 
Tuesda3'20, 
Wednesday  21, 
Thursday  22, 
Friday  23, 
Saturday  24, 


Saturday  3, 
Sunday  4, 
Monday  5, 
Tuesday  6, 
Wednesday  7, 
Thursdays, 
Friday  9, 

Saturday  10, 
Sunday  11, 
Tuesday  13, 
Wednesday  14, 
Thursday  15, 
Friday  16, 
Saturday  17, 
Sunday  18, 
Monday  19, 
Monday  19, 
Tuesday  20, 
Wednesday  21, 
Thursday  22, 
Friday  23, 
Saturday  24, 
Sunday  25, 


Pueblo,    Colo. 
Cheyenne,  Wyo. 
Colorado  Springs,  Colo. 
Leadville,   Colo. 
Grand  Junction,  Colo. 
Ogden,  Utah. 

(evening  only) 
Boise,  Idaho. 
Pocatello,  Idaho. 
Salt  Lake  City,  Utah. 
Denver,  Colo. 
Kearney,  Neb. 
St.  Joseph,  Mo. 
Atchison,  Kans. 
Creston,  Iowa. 
Des  Moines,  Iowa. 
Davenport,  Iowa. 
Rock  Island,  111. 
Kansas   City,  Kans. 
Joplin,  Mo. 
Springfield,  Mo. 
Jefferson  City,  Mo. 
East  St.  Louis,  III. 
St.  Louis,  Mo. 


[18] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 


Saturday  24, 
Sunday  25, 
Sunday  25, 
Monday  26, 
Tuesday  27, 
Wednesday  28, 
Thursday  29, 

Friday  30, 


Sunday  25, 
Monday  26, 
Monday  26, 
Tuesday  27, 
Wednesday  28, 
Thursday  29, 
Friday  30, 

Saturday  1, 
May 


Monday  26, 
Tuesday  27, 
Tuesday  27, 
Wednesday  28, 
Thursday  29, 
Friday  30, 
Saturday  1, 

May 
Sunday  2, 
May 


Springfield,  111. 
Hannibal.  Mo. 
Quincy,  111. 
Ottumwa,  Iowa. 
Burlington,  Iowa. 
Cedar  Rapids,  Iowa. 
Madison,  Wis. 

Ft.  Wayne,  Ind. 


MAY,  1915 


Saturday  1, 
Sunday  2, 
Monday  3, 
Tuesday  4, 
Wednesday  5, 
Thursday  6, 
Friday  7, 
Saturdays, 
Sunday  9, 
Monday  10, 
Monday  10, 
Tuesday  11, 
Tuesday  11, 
Wednesday  12, 
Thursday  13, 
Friday  14, 
Saturday  15, 
Sunday  16, 
Monday  17, 

Tuesday  18, 
Wednesday  19, 
Thursday  20, 
Friday  21, 
Saturday  22, 
Sunday  23, 


Sunday  2, 
Monday  3, 
Tuesday  4, 
Wednesday  5, 
Thursday  6, 
Friday  7, 
Saturdays, 
Sunday  9, 
Monday  10, 
Tuesday  11, 
Tuesday  11, 
Wednesday  12, 
Wednesday  12, 
Thursday  13, 
Friday  14, 
Saturday  15, 
Sunday  16, 
Monday  17, 
Tuesday  18, 
Tuesday  18, 
Wednesday  19, 
Thursday  20, 
Friday  21, 
Saturday  22, 
Sunday  23, 
Monday  24, 


Monday  3, 
Tuesday  4, 
Wednesday  5, 
Thursday  6, 
Friday  7, 
Saturdays, 
Sunday  9, 
Monday  10, 
Tuesday  11, 
Wednesday  12, 
Wednesday  12, 
Thursday  13, 
Thursday  13, 
Friday  14, 
Saturday  15, 
Sunday  16, 
Monday  17, 
Tuesday  18, 
Wednesday  19, 
Wednesday  19, 
Thursday  20, 
Friday  21, 
Saturday  22, 
Sunday  23, 
Mondaj'24, 
Tuesday  25, 


Lima,  O. 
Dayton,  O. 
Muncie,  Ind. 
Marion,   Ind. 
Anderson,  Ind. 
LaFayette,  Ind. 
Indianapolis,  Ind. 
Bloomington,  Ind. 
Louisville,  Ky. 
Frankfort,  Ky. 
Lexington,  Ky. 
Covington,  Ky. 
Newport,  Ky. 
Springfield,  O. 
Zanesville,  O. 
Columbus,  O. 
Parkersburg,  W.  Va. 
Charleston,  W.  Va. 
Huntington,   W.  Va. 
Catlettsburg,  Ky. 
Steubenville,  O. 
East   Liverpool,  O. 
Canton,  O. 
Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
Akron,  O. 
Cleveland,  O. 


[19] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Monday  24,  Tuesday  25,  Wednesday  26,  Youngstown,  O. 

Monday  24,  Tuesday  25,  Wednesday  26,  New  Castle,  Pa. 

Tuesday  25,  Wednesday  26,  Thursday  27,  Cumberland,  Md. 

Wednesday  26,    Thursday  27,  Friday  28,  Greensburg,  Pa. 

Thursday  27,        Friday  28,  Saturday  29,  Harrisburg,  Pa. 

Thursday  27,        Friday  28,  Saturday  29,  Lebanon,  Pa. 

Friday  28,  Saturday  29,  Sunday  30,  New  York  City. 

Saturday  29,         Sunday  33,  Monday  31,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y. 

Saturday  29,         Sunday  33,  Monday  31,  Newburgh,  N.  Y. 

Sunday  30,  Monday  31,  Tuesday  1,  Utica,  N.  Y. 

June 

A'Ionday31,  Tuesday  1,  Wednesday  2,  Hoboken,  N.  J. 

June  June 


JUNE,   1915 

Tuesday  1,  Wednesday  2,      Thursday  3,  Wilmington,  Del. 

Wednesday  2,      Thursday  3,  Friday  4,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Thursday  3,  Friday  4,  Saturday  5,  Camden,  N.  J. 

Friday  4,  Saturday  5,  Sunday  6.  Atlantic  City,  N.  J. 


[20] 


J.  FRANK  HANLY 


J  FRANK  HANLY  was  born  in  a  log  cabin  in  Cham- 
paign County,  Illinois,  April  4,  1863.  He  received 
most  of  his  earlier  education  at  his  mother's  knee, 
under  her  tutorship.  He  was  able  to  attend  school  but 
little,  scarcely  a  year  all  told.  At  thirteen  years  of  age  he 
started  out  to  make  his  way  in  the  world  as  a.  hired  hand 
on  a  farm.  While  thus  engaged  he  acquired  sufficient 
knowledge  of  the  common  branches  to  obtain  a  Hcense  as 
a  teacher  of  the  public  schools  of  Warren  County  in  1881, 
having  come  to  the  State  of  Indiana  two  years  before. 
Later  he  attended  a  course  of  six  weeks  in  the  Eastern 
lUinois  Normal  School,  at  Danville,  IlHnois. 

He  continued  to  teach  in  the  public  schools  of  Indiana 
and  Ilhnois  until  1889,  when  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and 
began  the  practice  of  the  law  at  Williamsport,  Indiana.  In 
1890  he  was  nominated  and  elected  State  Senator,  and  in 
1894  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  In  1898  he  was 
narrowly  defeated  in  the  Republican  legislative  caucus  for 
United  States  Senator  by  a  coalition  of  all  the  opposition 
after  a  memorable  contest.  In  1904  he  was  elected  Gov- 
ernor of  Indiana  over  Hon.  John  W.  Kern  by  a  plurality  of 
nearly  eighty-five  thousand,  a  pluraHty  at  that  time  without 
precedent  in  Indiana,  and  the  four  years  of  his  administra- 
tion mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  not  only  of  his  State,  but 
in  the  Nation.  History  was  made  in  those  years,  history 
that  will  Hve,  for  forces  for  civic  betterment  were  set  in 
motion  that  will  never  stop  until  evil  is  dead. 

In  1908,  while  serving  as  Governor,  he  was  elected  to  the 
General  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
which  convened  in  Baltimore  in  May  of  that  year.  He  was 
made  Chairman  of  the  General  Committee  on  Temperance  and 
prepared  the  Church's  utterance  on  that  subject.  In  1912  he 
was  re-elected  a  delegate  to  the  General  Conference  which 
convened  in   MinneapoHs,  and  again  served  as  Chairman 

[23]  \^g 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

of  the  General  Temperance  Committee,  and  again  prepared 
the  utterance  of  the  Church  on  this  subject. 

In  1900  he  was  Chairman  of  the  Repubhcan  State  Con- 
vention, and  in  1912  was  a  delegate  to  the  Republican  Na- 
tional Convention,  which  convened  in  Chicago. 

For  years  he  has  held  high  place  on  the  lecture  platform. 
As  Governor  he  delivered  the  dedicatory  address  at  the  un- 
veiling of  the  monument  to  Oliver  P.  Morton,  on  the  State 
House  grounds  in  Indianapolis ;  at  the  unveiling  of  the 
monument  in  commemoration  of  the  Battle  of  Tippecanoe, 
on  the  ground  where  the  Battle  of  Tippecanoe  was  fought ; 
at  the  unveiling  of  the  monument  in  honor  of  Indiana's 
soldiers  at  Vicksburg,  Mississippi,  and  at  the  unveiling  of 
the  monument  erected  to  Indiana's  dead  at  Andersonville, 
Georgia.  In  these  addresses  he  rose  to  the  high  levels  of 
commemorative  oratory. 

Governor  of  his  State  at  forty-one,  he  laid  further  polit- 
ical ambition  on  the  altar  of  the  great  cause  that  has  since 
enlisted  his  highest  efforts,  and  has  become  one  of  its  fore- 
most advocates,  bringing  to  its  defense  a  zeal  that  never 
flags,  a  consecration  that  ennobles  and  an  eloquence  that 
inspires,  persuades  and  convinces.  He  has  been  heard  in 
every  State  in  the  Union  and  in  every  great  city  in  America. 

Honest  in  his  public  service,  pure  in  a  life  full  of  rewards 
and  honors,  a  life  which  has  been  without  the  slightest  stain 
of  cowardice  or  double-dealing,  he  brings  to  bear  on  every 
question  he  presents  the  force  and  power  of  a  compelling 
and  mighty  personality.  Of  his  work  on  the  platform  it 
has  been  said:  "It  is  the  art  of  public  speech  at  its  best; 
it  is  oratory  at  its  highest." 

In  connection  with  Hon.  Oliver  W.  Stewart  and  Mr. 
William  M.  Conrad,  formerly  of  the  staff  of  the  Washing- 
ton Star,  he  is  now  devoting  all  his  time  and  energies  to 
the  founding  and  establishing  of  the  "National  Enquirer", 
a  great  national  weekly,  to  be  published  in  Indianapolis, 

[24] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  the  organization  and  establishment  of  the  "Flying  Squad- 
ron Foundation,"  and  to  the  advocacy  on  the  platform  of 
State  and  Nation-wide  Prohibition. 


[25] 


"I  HATE  IT" 

*T  bear  no  malice  toward  those  engaged  in  the  liquor 
business,  but  I  hate  the  traffic. 

"I  hate  its  every  phase. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  intolerance. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  arrogance. 

'T  hate  it  for  its  hypocrisy;  for  its  cant  and  craft  and 
false  pretense. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  commercialism;  for  its  greed  and  ava- 
rice ;  for  its  sordid  love  of  gain  at  any  price. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  domination  of  politics ;  for  its  corrupting 
influence  in  civic  affairs;  for  its  incessant  effort  to  debauch 
the  suffrage  of  the  country;  for  the  cowards  it  makes  of 
public  men. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  utter  disregard  of  law;  for  its  ruthless 
trampling  of  the  solemn  compacts  of  State  constitutions. 

"I  hate  it  for  the  load  it  straps  to  labor's  back;  for  the 
palsied  hands  it  gives  to  toil;  for  its  wounds  to  genius;  for 
the  tragedies  of  its  might-have-beens. 

'T  hate  it  for  the  human  wrecks  it  has  caused. 

"I  hate  it  for  the  almshouses  it  peoples;  for  the  prisons  it 
fills ;  for  the  insanity  it  begets ;  for  its  countless  graves  in 
potters'  fields. 

"I  hate  it  for  the  mental  ruin  it  imposes  upon  its  victims  ; 
for  its  spiritual  blight ;  for  its  moral  degradation. 

*T  hate  it  for  the  crimes  it  commits;  for  the  homes  it 
destroys ;  for  the  hearts  it  breaks. 

"I  hate  it  for  the  malice  it  plants  in  the  hearts  of  men ; 
for  its  poison,  for  its  bitterness,  for  the  dead  sea  fruit  with 
which  it  starves  their  souls. 

'T  hate  it  for  the  grief  it  causes  womanhood — the  scald- 
ing tears,  the  hopes  deferred,  the  strangled  aspirations,  its 
burden  of  want  and  care. 

"I  hate  it  for  its  heartless  cruelty  to  the  aged,  the  infirm 

[27] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  the  helpless ;  for  the  shadow  it  throws  upon  the  lives 
of  children;  for  its  monstrous  injustice  to  blameless  little 
ones. 

"I  hate  it  as  virtue  hates  vice,  as  truth  hates  error,  as 
righteousness  hates  sin,  as  justice  hates  wrong,  as  liberty 
hates  tyranny,  as  freedom  hates  oppression. 

"I  hate  it  as  Abraham  Lincoln  hated  slavery,  and  as  he 
sometimes  saw  in  prophetic  vision  the  end  of  slavery,  and 
the  coming  of  the  time  when  the  sun  should  shine  and  the 
rain  should  fall  upon  no  slave  in  all  the  Republic,  so  I 
sometimes  seem  to  see  the  end  of  this  unholy  traffic,  the 
coming  of  the  time  when,  if  it  does  not  wholly  cease  to  be, 
it  shall  find  no  safe  habitation  anywhere  beneath  Old 
Glory's  stainless  stars." 


[28] 


THE  TRIAL  OF  JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

IDG  NOT  SPEAK  tonight  in  behalf  of  any  party,  of 
any  sect,  of  any  creed.  I  am  here  on  the  business  of 
the  King.  My  cHent  is  mankind.  I  hold  a  brief  for 
the  human  race;  for  the  living,  the  unborn,  the  unbegotten; 
for  all  who  are,  in  any  land,  in  any  clime ;  for  all  who  are 
to  be.  You  are  my  jury,  and  I  shall  arraign  and  put  upon 
trial  before  you  the  capital  criminal  of  the  race — John 
Barleycorn. 

I  shall  charge  him  with  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors, 
and  shall  claim  at  your  hands  a  verdict  of  guilty ;  a  judg- 
ment of  condemnation! 

You  may  refuse  me  ! — yes,  I  know  you  may ! — as  men  and 
women  have  refused  me  before ;  but  even  though  you  do, 
the  time  will  yet  come  in  this  Nation  when  the  American 
people  will  give  me  judgment. 

I  have  within  me  the  flower  of  a  great  faith  tonight. 
Let  me  unfold  its  bloom  to  you,  that  you  too  may  catch 
its  beauty  and  hold  to  your  doubting  hearts  the  consolation 
of  its  perfume:  God  is,  and  reigns!  No  just  cause  ever 
dies !  You  may  kill  its  defenders,  as  you  sometimes  have. 
You  may  silence  its  advocates,  as  you  still  sometimes  do. 
You  may  drive  from  place  and  power  all  who  for  the  hour 
administer  government  in  its  name,  and  they  may  pass 
away,  and  cease  forever  to  have  to  do  with  public  afifairs ; 
but  in  the  fullness  of  God's  own  time  He  raises  up  new 
advocates  and  commissions  new  defenders. 

There  is  something  about  a  great  cause,  so  august  and 
so  subHme ;  it  so  grips  the  hearts  of  men  and  women,  and 
links  it  to  their  souls,  that  for  every  one  who  falls  in  its 
defense  an  hundred  spring  to  its  rescue,  and  bear  it  in 
strong  and  loving  endeavor  so  near  the  gates  of  the  Eternal 
City  that  the  good  God  smiles  upon  it  in  recognition  and 
crowns  it  with  victory. 

[29] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

No  just  cause  ever  dies !  And  no  evil  cause  ever  lives 
in  perpetuity.  The  sepulcher  of  the  centuries  is  filled  with 
the  whitening  bones  of  dead  evils,  slain  by  man  in  his  climb 
toward  God.  You  may  build — build  in  your  pride  and  power 
as  deep  as  the  Continent;  build  as  high  as  the  Himalayas — 
but  if  you  build  upon  human  wrong  or  upon  human  injus- 
tice, the  hour  will  come  when  the  heart-throb  of  a  woman — 
the  pulse  of  a  baby — somewhere,  will  beat  down  the  mighty 
edifice  you  rear,  toppling  it  in  ruins  about  your  nerveless, 
helpless  hands.  Right  may  ascend  the  scafTold ;  Wrong  may 
mount  the  throne — 

"But     *     *     *     behind  the  dim  unknown 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keeping  watch  above 
his  own." 

In  the  long  fight  stretching  through  the  centuries  His 
arm  will  be  the  strongest. 

On  the  19th  of  last  November,  a  year  ago,  a  proud,  high 
privilege  came  to  me — the  privilege  of  standing  among  the 
graves  at  Gettysburg,  on  the  spot  where  Lincoln  stood 
fifty  years  before  to  a  day,  to  pronounce  that  immortal 
oration  delivered  in  dedication  of  the  National  Cemetery 
there — the  privilege  of  standing  there  and  of  speaking  to 
a  mighty  concourse  of  my  fellow-countrymen.  About  me, 
spreading  like  the  waves  of  the  sea,  were  the  grass-covered 
graves  of  more  than  ten  thousand  men  who  fell  in  that  red 
tide.  As  I  rose  to  speak  it  seemed  to  me  I  stood  on  holy 
ground,  on  soil  forever  consecrated — consecrated  by  the 
spilled  and  mingled  blood  of  two  heroic  peoples ;  and  when 
I  had  finished  and  turned  to  walk  away,  I  read,  ever  and 
anon,  on  the  upturned  oval  of  the  little  white  tombstones 
there,  the  only  tribute  posterity  has  paid  to  many  of  them, 
the  single  word  "Unknown."  Think  a  minute — "Unknown !" 
There  they  had  lain  for  fifty  years.  There  they  will  lie, 
through  the  morning's  flush,  the  sunset's  glow;  in  solitude, 

[30] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

beneath  the  silent,  circHng  stars.    They  gave  not  only  their 
lives,  they  gave  their  identity  itself,  forever  and  forever. 

Then  I  walked  out  of  the  cemetery,  out  from  among  the 
graves,  down  the  shell-plowed  slope  immortalized  by  Pick- 
ett's wondrous  charge,  into  the  valley  below,  and  counted 
in  my  mind's  thought  the  human  toll  of  those  three  fateful 
days.  There  in  the  little  valley,  spread  out  before  me, 
were  more  than  forty  thousand  men — dead,  wounded  and 
dying — a  human  cataclysm,  a  racial  catastrophe,  a  whirlwind 
from  hell !  Language  cannot  paint  the  thing  I  saw.  Words 
cannot  describe  it.  Imagination  cannot  conceive  the  horror  or 
the  tragedy  of  it.  As  I  looked  upon  it  I  cried  out  in  the  anguish 
of  my  soul,  "Oh,  the  pity  of  it  all !  How  some  one  must 
have  blundered!" 

And  yet,  colossal  as  was  the  human  cataclysm  there  at 
Gettysburg,  there  is  a  greater  one  being  wrought  this  hour 
in  the  life  of  this  people.  In  this  glad  morning  of  this  tre- 
mendous century,  in  this  day  of  peace,  for  us,  with  all  the 
world,  John  Barleycorn,  the  defendant  at  this  high  bar  to- 
night, kills  every  year,  here  in  this  Republic,  five  times  as 
many  men  as  fell  at  Gettysburg;  and  kills  with  our  sanc- 
tion, under  legislative  enactment,  constitutional  provision 
and  judicial  decree — kills,  holding  our  warrant  for  his  crime, 
under  the  authority  of  a  commission  bearing  the  seal  of  the 
government  under  which  we  live — the  government  of 
Washington  and  of  Lincoln ! 

There  is  this  difference  between  his  dead  and  the  dead 
at  Gettysburg: 

For  the  dead  at  Gettysburg  there  was  compensation. 
They  did  not  die  in  vain.  Out  of  their  spilled  blood  the 
Nation  arose,  purified  and  glorified.  Out  of  the  fire  and 
flame  of  the  three  red  days  at  Gettysburg  our  country 
came,  every  star  in  its  flag  in  its  wonted  place ;  its  divided 
sections  reunited;  its  war-worn  people  reconciled,  and  at 
their  feet  the  broken  shackles  of  thrice  a  milHon  slaves. 

[31] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

But  for  the  dead  killed  by  John  Barleycorn  there  is  no 
compensation.  Their's  is  utter,  colossal,  irretrievable  loss. 
For  them  there  is  in  all  the  world  no  balance  sheet — no 
balance  sheet. 

The  dead  killed  at  Gettysburg  left  to  their  children  a 
heritage  of  glory  and  renown.  Oh,  sir,  the  splendor  of  it ! 
Where  breathes  a  man  tonight  in  whose  veins  runs  a  drop 
of  blood  of  one  who  died  in  that  red  tide,  on  either  side, 
whether  he  fell  wrapped  in  gray  or  clad  in  blue,  who  does 
not  walk  with  higher  head  and  firmer  tread  at  the  memory 
of  it? 

But  the  dead  killed  by  John  Barleycorn  leave  to  their 
children  no  heritage  of  glory  or  renown ;  their's  is  a  legacy 
of  shame  and  of  dishonor,  interfibered  with  regret  and  grief. 

The  dead  killed  at  Gettysburg  left  to  their  posterity 
sound  bodies,  clean  souls,  strong  hands,  clear  intellects, 
imperial  wills,  unbreakable  moral  stamina !  What  a  heri- 
tage !    What  a  heritage  ! 

But  the  dead  killed  by  John  Barleycorn  leave  to  their 
posterity  broken  bodies,  distraught  souls,  palsied  hands, 
enfeebled  intellects,  impaired  wills,  and  utter  lack  of  moral 
stamina.  For  hear  me :  John  Barleycorn  not  only  kills 
the  sire,  he  wounds  to  its  death  the  offspring  as  well ;  puts 
into  its  veins  a  thirst  that  will  not  be  satisfied,  interfibers 
with  its  being  appetites  that  cannot  be  controlled.  He 
dethrones  the  soul,  enthrones  the  flesh,  and  makes  the  pas- 
sions master  of  the  man. 

And  so,  in  this  goodly  presence,  at  this  holy  bar  and  in 
this  sacred  place,  tonight,  I  charge  him  with  murder — 
wholesale,  atrocious,  million-fingered  murder — niurder  of 
men  (I  have  looked  upon  their  broken  bodies),  murder  of 
women,  murder  of  little  children,  murder  of  babes  unborn! 
And  you — you  are  the  jury,  with  power  of  verdict,  power 
of  judgment,  power  of  execution.    Come,  you  men!    Come 

[32] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

with  me,  and  we'll  weave  the  death-robe,  hew  the  death- 
block,  and  lead  him  to  his  execution  in  State  and  in  Nation. 

I  charge  him,  too,  with  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  all  the 
insanity  in  the  Nation.  Think  a  minute !  Do  you  really 
know  what  that  means  ?  Let  me  illustrate  what  it  means 
by  the  facts  in  my  own  State.  In  Indiana  the  population 
of  the  State  has  increased  twenty-two  per  cent,  in  twenty 
years,  but  insanity  has  increased  sixty-nine  per  cent,  in 
fifteen  years !  Men  and  women !  Do  you  know  the  end 
of  that  road?  Do  you?  The  end  of  that  road  is  national 
decay,  moral  degeneracy,  man-failure,  woman-failure !  And 
in  this  Republic  man-failure  and  woman-failure  mean  insti- 
tutional failure — failure  of  institutions  for  which  men  have 
died  at  the  battle's  front,  sad  only  that  they  had  but  one 
life  to  give. 

I  charge  him  with  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  all  the  vagrancy 
in  the  Nation — the  poverty,  pauperism  and  dependency. 

And  I  charge  him  with  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  all  the 
crime  committed  in  the  land,  and  I  do  not  guess ;  I  know ! 
I  know !  For  four  years  I  administered  the  government 
of  a  great  American  Commonwealth.  For  four  years  it 
was  my  business  to  know.  For  four  years  I  walked  the 
corridors  and  tarried  in  the  wards  of  hospital,  reformatory 
and  prison,  and  became  familiar  with  the  tragic  story  their 
records  tell.  For  four  years  I  counted  the  cost  and  toll  of 
it  all  and  weighed  the  evidence  as  it  passed  through  the 
Governor's  office.  In  four  years  I  read,  page  by  page,  the 
court  record  in  more  than  six  hundred  criminal  cases  com- 
ing before  me  on  appeal  for  executive  clemency,  and  in 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of  them  all  John  Barleycorn  was 
the  responsible,  producing  agency  of  the  crime  committed. 

I  charge  him,  too,  with  the  spoliation  of  the  childhood  of 
the  Nation.  And  again  I  do  not  guess ;  I  know !  Yes,  I  know ! 
Sometimes  I  wish  I  did  not  know.  Let  me  illustrate  some- 
thing of  what  I  know:     In  my  State,  tonight,  there  are 

[33] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

more  than  a  thousand  children  in  the  custodial,  correctional 
care  of  the  Commonwealth,  under  sixteen  years  of  age — 
some  of  them  only  six.  They  ought  to  be  in  mother  arms 
this  hour.  Instead  they  are  in  the  correctional  care  of  the 
State,  clothed  and  housed  and  fed  at  public  expense ;  de- 
prived of  a  mother's  love,  denied  a  father's  care. 

I  visited  them  many  times  as  Governor,  looked  into  their 
faces  and  read  in  lack-luster  eye,  in  degenerate  counte- 
nance, in  deformed,  misshapen  bodies,  in  crooked,  twisted 
limbs  the  irrefragable  proof  of  the  pitiful  fact  that  they, 
these  thousand  children,  are  atoning  for  some  one's  else 
sin — paying  the  price  of  another's  wrong.  Paying  the  price  ? 
Aye,  paying  every  day  and  every  hour,  and  will  continue  to 
pay  while  God  lets  them  live ! 

They  never  had  a  fair  chance  !  They  never  knew  a  square 
deal !  For  the  records  show  that  more  than  six  hundred 
and  fifty  of  them  have,  or  had,  drunken  fathers  or  drunken 
mothers,  or,  God  in  heaven  pity  them,  both  drunken  fathers 
and  drunken  mothers !  Wronged  in  the  moment  of  their 
conception !  Wounded  in  their  mothers'  wombs !  Disin- 
herited at  their  birth !  Their  destiny  fixed  from  the  begin- 
ning— a  State  institution,  hospital,  reformatory,  prison ;  the 
electric  chair,  or  the  gallows  !  What  an  indictment  of  twen- 
tieth century  civilization  it  all  is !  I  never  left  the  presence 
of  these  children  that  the  soul  of  me  did  not  cry  out,  that 
a  great,  free,  powerful  people  ought  not  to  license  and 
legalize  a  thing  that  so  wrongs  the  childhood  they  beget. 

Somewhere  I've  read — somewhere  in  this  old  Book — that 
God,  the  Father  of  us  all,  marks  the  sparrow's  fall.  And  if 
He  does  mark  the  fall  of  the  sparrow — the  fall  of  a  bird — 
think  you  He  does  not  mark  the  fall  of  these  little  ones? 
Fifty  thousand  of  them  every  year!  And  if  He  does  mark 
their  fall,  think  you  He  does  not  fix  responsibility  for  their 
fall?  And  if  He  does  fix  responsibility  for  their  fall,  what 
answer   can   you   make,    standing   at    His    eternal    judgment 

[34] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

bar  ? — you  who  hold  the  power  !  You  who,  under  God,  are 
sovereign  here  !  You,  who  could  end  it  all,  in  this  Republic ! 
Could  end  it  all,  but  do  not !    Do  not ! 

What  judgment  think  you  ought  to  be  rendered  against 
you?  Ought  to  be  rendered  against  you?  Aye,  already  is 
rendered !  Rendered  two  thousand  years  ago  as  it  fell  from 
the  lips  of  the  great  Nazarene,  among  the  hills  of  Palestine, 
when  He  called  unto  Him  a  little  child,  set  him  in  the  midst 
of  the  multitude,  and  then  said  unto  them :  "Woe  unto 
him  who  offendeth  one  of  these  little  ones.  It  were  better 
that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck  and  he  cast 
into  the  sea."  Men  and  women !  Men  and  women!  Hear 
me !  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  altogether  true  and 
righteous !  This  one,  righteous  when  uttered,  in  the  dim 
dawn  of  the  Christian  era,  cannot  be  less  righteous  in  the 
noontide  glow  of  the  Christian  era.  This  judgment,  right- 
eous two  thousand  years  ago  in  the  land  of  Palestine,  must 
needs  be  righteous  now,  in  the  land  of  Washington,  of 
Lincoln  and  of  Lee ! 

It  cannot  be  that,  with  the  process  of  the  suns  and  the 
evolution  of  the  race,  we  shall  much  longer  continue  to 
wrong  the  children  we  beget.  It  cannot  be  that  the  cry 
of  these  defective  little  ones  shall  go  much  longer  unheard 
by  the  manhood  and  womanhood  of  this  Nation.  No,  it 
must  needs  be  that  soon,  in  some  luminous  moment,  the 
fatherhood  and  the  motherhood  of  the  land  shall  find  itself, 
and  drive,  in  their  power  and  indignation,  from  the  confines 
of  the  Republic,  this  thing  that  so  grievously  wounds  the 
childhood  of  the  RepubHc!  If  I  did  not  believe  that,  my 
heart  would  break  with  grief,  disappointment  and  shame ! 

Let  me  show  you  further  the  enormity  of  this  defendant's 
crimes — the  magnitude  and  awfulness  of  their  results  as 
exemplified  in  a  single  American  commonwealth — the  State 
in  which  I  live. 

As  I  speak  to  you  there  are  in  the  custodial  care  of  my 

[35] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

State  more  than  twelve  thousand  men  and  women — more 
than  five  thousand  of  them  insane!  In  the  custodial  care 
of  State,  county  and  city  there  are  more  than  four  thousand 
dependent  children!  In  the  custodial  care  of  the  State 
alone,  more  than  twelve  hundred  feeble-minded  children! 
There  are  more  than  three  thousand  other  men  and  women 
in  county  asylums.  And  in  1913  we  jailed  in  a  single  year 
a  vast  army  of  men  and  women — more  than  forty  thousand, 
eighteen  thousand  of  them  for  being  found  drunk  in  a 
public  place — and  gave  in  the  same  year  outside  poor  relief 
to  another  army  of  more  than  fifty-one  thousand  men  and 
women!  What  a  mighty  army  they  constitute,  this  army 
of  the  dependent,  the  defective,  the  degenerate  and  the 
criminal — more  than  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand — one 
person  out  of  every  twenty-five  in  all  the  population  of  the 
Commonwealth ! 

Here  they  come !  Here  they  come !  The  parade  of  the 
unfortunate,  the  disinherited!  More  than  five  thousand 
insane  men  and  women — men  and  women  bereft  of  reason — 
followed  by  four  thousand  dependent  children;  these  by 
twelve  hundred  feeble-minded  children,  and  they  by  a  thou- 
sand incorrigibles.  Yonder,  in  the  next  division,  are  the 
criminals,  twenty-four  hundred,  from  prison  and  reforma- 
tory ;  then  three  thousand  men  and  women  from  city  in- 
firmaries and  county  asylums;  and  then  a  tousled,  disease- 
infected,  rum-marked  host — forty  thousand — the  inmates  from 
the  county  jails  of  the  State  for  a  single  year ;  eighteen  hundred 
of  them  reeling  under  intoxication ;  after  them,  fifty-one  thou- 
sand dependents,  feeding  from  the  hand  of  public  charity. 
What  a  commentary  upon  our  civilization  they  all  are!  If 
you  ask  "What  of  it?  What  is  all  that  to  me?"  you  have 
my  answer  in  another  question,  "Who  feeds  this  army  of  the 
dependent,  the  defective,  the  degenerate,  the  criminal? 
Who  clothco  it?    Who  houses  it?    Who  pays  for  its  care?" 

[36] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Four  million  dollars  a  year !    In  my  State  my  people  pay, 
my  people  pay! 

And  this  defendant,  the  defendant  here  at  this  bar  tonight, 
is  responsible  for  more  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  it  all.  It  is 
with  these  high  crimes  I  charge  him,  and  there  is  for  him 
no  defense. 

I  understand  a  gentleman  speaking  from  this  platform 
the  other  night  declared  this  traffic  was  moral  and  right. 
If  it  is,  then  it  is  moral  to  despoil  the  helpless,  to  wrong 
the    innocent;    if    it    is,    then    murder    is    moral;    if    it    is, 
then    it    is    moral    to    disinherit    babyhood,    to    wrong    child- 
hood in  its  conception,  to  wound  it  in  its  mother's  womb ! 
Men  and  women,  hear  me!     If  this  thing  be  moral,  then 
there  is  no  crime  beneath  the  stars !    And  here  stands  the 
defendant— he  stands  before  you  to  be  judged.     There  is 
no  defense  for  him.    There  is  not  an  alienist  in  all  the  land 
who  will  testify  for  him;  not  a  sociologist  anywhere  who 
will  speak  in  his  behalf ;  no  laboratory  that  will  yield  him 
evidence.    No,  he  stands  at  the  bar  to  be  judged,  with  the 
blood  upon  his  knotted  hands.     The  whole  world  knows 
his  guilt.     And  he,  too,  knows  his  guilt.     Knows  it  better 
than  all  others.    Knows  it  so  well  that  he  makes  no  defense. 
Instead  of  a  plea  in  denial  of  his  guilt,  he  makes  a  plea  for 
mercy;  begs  you,  now  that  you  have  him  at  bay  and  his 
guilt  is  known,  begs  you  for  mercy.    John  Barleycorn,  the 
capital  criminal  of  the  race,  at  bay,  begging  for  mercy  at 
the  hands  of  free  men  and  women!     Mercy?     Mercy  for 
him?     For  a  thousand  years  he  has  refused  it  to  human 
kind !    For  a  thousand  years  he  has  debauched  mankind  and 
denied  it  mercy!     For  a  thousand  years  he  has  entangled 
his   knotted   fingers    in    the   heartstrings    of    the   motherhood 
of  the  race  and  has  denied  it  mercy!    For  a  thousand  years 
he  has  bruised  the  mute  lips  of  babyhood  and  denied  it 
mercy !    And  now  shall  we,  who  have  him  at  bay,  who  have 
the  power,  shall  we  yield  to  him  that  which  he  has  denied 

{Z7] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  race  for  a  thousand  years?  Or  shall  we  render  a  ver- 
dict— a  verdict  just  as  heaven ;  a  judgment  unerring  as 
God's  will?  Instead  of  mercy,  let  us  weave  the  death-robe, 
hew  the  death-block,  and  lead  him  to  his  execution — lead 
him  to  his  execution  in  State  and  in  Nation ! 

He  pleads  that  you  ought  not  to  execute  him,  that  you 
instead  ought  to  restrict  him,  and  restrain  him,  and  regulate 
him,  and  control  him;  that  you  ought  to  do  nothing  that 
cripples  him,  take  no  step  calculated  to  drive  him  to  the  wall 
or  to  narrow  his  environment ;  that  you  ought  to  provide 
by  law  the  time  and  place  where,  by  your  authority,  he  can 
continue  to  ravage  the  human  race ! 

Regulate,  restrain,  restrict,  control  him  ?  We  have  tried  that 
in  America  for  two  hundred  years,  and  for  two  hundred  years 
we  have  failed.  When  we  have  put  upon  him  a  restriction  as  to 
place,  he  has  overstepped  that  restriction;  when  we  have 
put  upon  him  a  limitation  as  to  days  or  as  to  hours,  he  has 
broken  that  limitation ;  when  we  have  laid  upon  him  a  regula- 
tion as  to  condition,  he  has  trampled  upon  that  regulation.  For 
two  hundred  years  he  has  been  as  much  the  enemy  of  the 
institutions  of  this  country  as  though  he  had  trained  shot- 
ted guns  on  her  forts  and  arsenals,  and  the  hour  has  come, 
when,  by  legislative  enactment,  constitutional  provision  and 
judicial  decree  he  ought  to  be  branded  that  which  he  is  in 
fact,  an  outlaw  and  a  brigand ! 

Restrict,  restrain,  regulate  and  control  him !  When  I 
think  of  our  attitude  and  our  long-continued  and  fruitless 
efforts  in  that  behalf,  I  am  reminded  of  a  test  for  insanity 
I  have  seen  put  to  applicants  for  admission  to  hospitals  for 
the  insane.  The  patient  is  brought  into  a  room  bare  of 
furniture,  save  only  a  bathtub,  filled  to  the  brim  with 
water.  The  faucet  is  opened,  pouring  a  stream  of  water 
into  the  tub.  The  tub,  however,  is  so  arranged  that  it 
stands  brimful  but  does  not  run  over.  The  patient  is 
brought  to  the  bathtub,  is  shown  the  tub  of  water,  is  given 

[38] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

a  dipper  and  is  told  to  dip  the  tub  dry.  If  he  is  insane  he 
takes  the  dipper,  and  dips,  and  dips,  and  dips,  until  you  tell 
him  to  quit.  But  if  he  is  sane  he  does  not  dip  long  until 
he  discovers  he  has  not  lowered  the  water  in  the  tub.  Then 
he  investigates,  finds  the  open  faucet,  turns  the  water  off, 
and  dips  the  bathtub  dry.  I  am  wondering,  my  friends, 
how  soon,  if  ever,  you  will  be  able  to  meet  that  test. 

For  two  hundred  years  you  have  been  dipping,  dipping, 
dipping,  insanely  dipping !  Let's  turn  the  faucet  off — turn 
it  off  in  State  and  in  Nation — and  dip  the  bathtub  dry! 

He  files  another  special  plea,  not  of  defense,  but  of 
avoidance,  a  plea  of  financial  investment  and  right  of  prop- 
erty. He  insists  that  he  has  two  thousand  million  dollars 
invested  in  the  business,  and  in  property's  name,  and  in  the 
name  of  vested  rights,  he  demands  that  we  spare  him.  But 
this  plea  is  as  fallacious  as  the  other.  Don't  you  know 
that  a  people  cannot  found  industrial  efficiency,  or  com- 
mercial prosperity  upon  a  human  vice?  Don't  you  know 
that  a  man  cannot  drink  himself  into  sobriety,  or  into 
financial  competence,  or  into  health,  or  into  respectable 
standing  in  a  community?  Don't  you?  It's  utterly  im- 
possible that  a  man  may  found  strength,  courage  or  effi- 
ciency upon  the  drink  habit. 

To  his  plea  of  vested  rights  in  property  owned,  I  an- 
swer :  For  more  than  thirty  years  all  men  who  cared  to 
know  have  known  that  no  man,  under  the  constitution  and 
the  laws  of  this  Republic,  or  of  any  State  in  this  Union, 
can  have  a  vested  right  in  any  phase  of  the  liquor  business, 
or  an  inherent  right  to  conduct  it  for  a  day  or  an  hour. 
The  courts  of  last  resort.  State  and  Federal,  have  held 
without  exception,  whenever  the  question  has  been  pre- 
sented to  them,  the  liquor  traffic  to  be  so  inimical  to  the 
public  welfare,  so  destructive  to  the  social  compact  and  so 
injurious  to  the  body  politic  that  no  man  may  have  in  it 
any   right   which    the   people   in    the    exercise   of   their   sov- 

[39] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ereignty  may  not  take  from  him  at  any  moment.  Knowing 
this,  the  men  who  have  invested  money  in  the  traffic  have 
done  so  at  their  peril,  precisely  as  the  highwayman  acts 
at  his  peril. 

Further,  as  to  the  economic  plea :  We  live  in  a  dynamic 
hour, — an  hour,  every  moment  of  which  is  throbbing  with 
rivalry  and  big  with  competition.  We  have  bridged  the 
seas,  laid  our  scepter  on  the  stars,  and  made  the  Antipodes 
our  neighbors.  There  is  no  market  in  any  country  that  is 
not  contended  for  by  the  peoples  of  all  countries.  There 
is  no  commercial  port  of  importance  anywhere  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  for  which  the  peoples  of  all  the  earth 
are  not  rivals.  We,  here  in  America,  are  isolated  from 
the  great  Nations  of  the  earth  by  broad,  far-reaching  seas, 
but,  in  spite  of  that,  we  are  eating  today  fresh  meat 
killed  in  Argentina  and  in  Australia ;  butter  made  in 
New  Zealand,  on  the  other  side  of  the  world ;  eggs  laid 
in  China.  There  are  no  more  worlds  to  conquer,  no  undis- 
covered lands.  The  race  is  destined  to  walk  forever  the 
little  world  that  is.  Before  this  century  closes  the  contest 
for  supremacy  will  be  sharp  and  tense  as  life  itself.  For 
us  one  of  two  things  is  as  inevitable  as  time :  The  Ameri- 
can people  will  sink  to  the  economic  and  social  level  of 
their  rivals  beyond  the  sea,  or  they  will  rise  superior  to 
them  in  efficiency — physical,  moral  and  industrial.  There 
is  no  choice.  There  are  only  these  two  alternatives.  A 
drunken  people  cannot  attain  the  mastery  in  such  a  duel. 
To  win,  we  will  need  human  machinery  of  Bessemer  steel. 
Burned-out  sheetiron  will  not  do! 

He  files  another  plea,  and  claims,  because  of  it,  the 
right  to  live :  The  plea  of  personal  liberty.  His  conten- 
tion is  that  you  cannot  execute  him  without  injuring  your- 
self; that  if  you  take  his  life  you  will  impair  your  own 
liberty  and  destroy  your  own  freedom.  In  confidential  mo- 
ments he  will  sit  down  beside  you  and  say  to  you  that  he 

[40] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

is  so  concerned  about  your  freedom,  and  such  a  devotee 
of  human  Hberty,  that  he  cannot  bear  to  have  you  take  his 
Hfe,  for  your  sake,  for  the  sake  of  your  hberty  and  your 
freedom.  But  w^hen  he  tells  you  that,  he  speaks  with  a 
forked  tongue,  his  lips  are  white  and  blistered  w^ith  per- 
jury !  He,  a  devotee  of  human  liberty !  He  has  welded 
more  chains  upon  the  wills  of  men  than  slavery  ever  put 
upon  the  arms  and  limbs  of  men !  He  has  been  the  enemy 
of  liberty  from  the  hour  this  Nation  was  founded !  He 
organized  and  conducted  the  first  rebellion  ever  raised 
against  the  flag  of  this  Republic,  as  early  as  the  Washing- 
ton administration ! 

The  supremest  liberty  God  confers  upon  men  is  liberty 
of  the  soul  to  command  the  body,  liberty  of  the  spirit  to 
command  the  flesh,  liberty  of  the  will  to  master  the  pas- 
sions and  the  appetites,  heired  or  acquired.  I  put  it  to  you : 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  John  Barleycorn  conferring  that  kind 
of  liberty  upon  any  man?     Did  you? 

I  saw  in  Chicago  recently  one  Sunday  afternoon  a  sam- 
ple of  the  only  kind  of  liberty  he  ever  confers  upon  a 
human  soul.  I  saw  a  stalwart  man,  of  gigantic  physical 
strength,  so  highly  endowed  with  the  kind  of  liberty  John 
Barleycorn  confers,  that  he  could  not  keep  his  wandering 
feet  on  a  twelve- foot  sidewalk;  so  charged  with  the  John 
Barleycorn  brand  of  liberty  that  his  tangled  legs  would 
not  support  his  drunken,  swaying  body — another  man  had 
to  lead  him ;  so  ladened  with  it  that  his  tongue  was  maud- 
lin, his  will  could  not  control  his  speech.  He  went  down 
the  street  like  a  jibbering  idot,  making  the  air  blue  with 
profanity  and  obscenity.  That  may  be  liberty!  It  is  hb- 
erty— the  only  kind  this  defendant  ever  confers — but  in 
God's  name  I  want  none  of  it  for  my  children,  or  for  my- 
self, not  even  for  my  enemy. 

He  contends  under  the  plea  of  personal  liberty,  that 
every  man  has  an  inherent  right  to  drink  what  he  pleases. 

[41] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

I  have  heard  him  say  it— heard  him  say  it  many  times— 
and  I  have  answered  back,  as  I  now  answer  back,  that 
whether  a  man  has  an  inherent  right  to  drink  what  he 
pleases,  depends  upon  what  he  pleases  to  drink.  And  I  am 
prepared  to  demonstrate  the  correctness  of  the  answer. 
I  will  take  you,  my  friend,  as  an  illustration: 

You  have  a  daughter— splendid,  beautiful  and  fragrant 
as  a  morning  in  June,  with  all  its  music  and  sunshine— 
a  daughter  fit  to  be  mated  to  an  Apollo,  a  King !  I  come 
to  you  and  say  to  you:  "I  am  a  man  of  lawful  age,  I  am 
sound  of  body  and  clean  of  soul.  I  love  your  daughter. 
I  want  her  for  my  wife,  and  I  ask  you  to  give  her  to  me, 
to  give  her  to  me,  body  and  soul."  I  am  putting  to  you  a 
supreme  question— one  that  makes  you  thoughtful— and 
if  you  yield  assent  at  all  it  is  only  upon  the  condition  that 
I  will  go  with  you  and  with  her,  into  God's  holy  temple, 
and  before  His  high  altar,  and  in  the  presence  of  His  min- 
ister and  under  the  ordinances  of  the  church  and  the  laws 
of  the  Commonwealth  in  which  we  live,  and  pledge  myself 
in  solemn  compact  and  covenant— pledge  myself  to  her, 
and  to  you,  that  if  you  give  her  to  me  I  will  love,  cherish 
and  defend  her  with  my  life.  That  is  the  condition.  I  as- 
sent to  it.  I  go  with  you,  and  with  her,  into  God's  holy 
temple,  and  in  the  presence  of  His  minister,  under  the 
solemnity  of  the  ordinances  of  the  church  and  the  laws  of 
the  State,  I  solemnly  enter  into  that  compact  and  sign  and 
seal  it  with  my  honor. 

Then  I  take  her  away.  You  have  given  to  me  the  dearest 
treasure  of  your  life, — given  her  to  me — and  I  have  ac- 
cepted her  under  the  sanction  of  the  highest  and  holiest 
of  covenants.  But  the  next  day  I  come  back  to  you  and 
say  to  you,  that,  notwithstanding  this  covenant,  and  the 
solemnity  in  which  I  entered  upon  it,  in  the  name  of  per- 
sonal liberty  I  have  a  right  to  drink  a  thing  that  will  make 
it  impossible  for  me  to  perform  my  part  of  the  covenant— 

[42] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

come  to  you  and  say  I  have  a  right  to  drink  a  thing  that 
will  send  me  home  to  her,  your  daughter,  whom  I  have 
so  taken,  a  frenzied  fiend;  send  me  home  to  her  to  beat  her 
flesh  and  scar  her  soul — that  in  the  name  of  personal  lib- 
erty I  have  a  right  to  drink  a  thing  after  I  have  taken  her 
to  myself  and  through  her  begotten  children — that  in  the 
name  of  personal  liberty — I  have  a  right  to  drink  a  thing 
that  will  put  the  fire  of  degeneracy  into  her  children's 
blood,  the  frenzy  of  insanity  into  their  brain,  and  the  rack 
of  palsy  into  their  hands.  Men  and  women,  hear  me ! 
That  thing  is  not  liberty!  It's  crime!  Crime  before  God! 
Crime  before  man ! 

I  might  continue  this  address  for  hours,  but  time  pre- 
cludes.   I  beg  only  a  closing  word. 

There  are  many  reasons  that  impel  me  to  participation 
in  this  great  Nation-wide  campaign,  so  many  that  I  could 
not  name  them  to  you,  though  I  held  you  here  until  to- 
morrow's dawn,  but  among  them  there  is  one  primal  rea- 
son, masterful  and  compelling;  one  which,  if  there  were 
none  other,  alone  would  send  me  forth  a  flaming  brand 
among  you  in  this  behalf.  It  is  found  in  the  inexpressible, 
infinite  wrong  the  liquor  traffic  daily  does  the  childhood  of 
my  country.  I  lay  no  claim  to  high  moral  courage.  On 
the  contrary,  there  have  been  times  in  my  life  when  I  did 
not  have  an  ounce  of  moral  courage  to  spare.  Indeed,  in 
all  humility  I  confess  to  you  that  there  are  moments  in 
my  life  when  I  do  not  have  enough  of  it !  But  coward 
though  I  may  have  been  and  am,  I  am  not  coward  enough 
to  go  my  way  in  silence,  and  live  my  life  in  snug  content, 
and  not  cry  out  against  this  thing  that  daily  wounds  the 
babyhood  of  the  land  that  gave  me  birth.  I  could  not  go 
to  my  grave  in  peace,  knowing  what  I  know,  if  I  did  not 
cry  out  against  it ;  if  I  did  not  try  to  stir  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women,  to  make  dumb  tongues  speak  and  dead  feet 
start;  if  I  did  not  endeavor  to  crystallize  public  opinion 

[43] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  to  give  an  edge  of  steel  to  the  will  and  purpose  of  my 
countrymen!  It  is  for  this,  above  all  other  reasons,  that  I 
am  placing  this  defendant  upon  trial  in  the  forum  of  Amer- 
ican opinion,  and  demanding  a  verdict  of  guilty  at  the 
Nation's  hands ! 


[44] 


WHY  THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC  STILL  EXISTS. 

WHY  does  the  liquor  traffic  still  exist  in  the  Amer- 
ican republic?  The  reasons  are  many  and  varied. 
Complete  answer  can  not  be  made  in  the  time 
allotted  me.  But  here  are  five, — two  primal,  each  of  the 
others  important,  and  all,  taken  together,  controlling: 
First, — The  Use  of  Intoxicating  Liquors  is  a  Racial  Evil 
deeply  rooted, — old  as  David,  old  as  Lot,  old  as  Noah, — 
woven  into  the  texture  of  our  mortal  being  by  sixty  cen- 
turies of  indulgence  and  carousal.  Creeping  through  our 
arteries  ebbs  the  poisoned  blood  of  six  thousand  years  of 
excess  and  of  passion, — a  curse-ladened,  sin-impoverished, 
disease-infecting  stream,  transmitted  from  sire  to  son  for 
two  thousand  generations ;  a  thirst-begetting,  will-impair- 
ing current,  drained  from  the  veins  of  drunken  queens, 
inebriate  kings,  imbecile  nobilities,  and  rum-besotted  peo- 
ples,— depleting  the  physical  and  mental  vitality,  wrecking 
the  nervous  system,  blunting  the  moral  sensibilities,  weak- 
ening the  moral  stamina  of  each  generation,  putting  the 
conscience  to  sleep,  awakening  appetites  beyond  control, 
and  setting  passion  on  fire. 

The  traffic  and  the  causes  that  feed  it,  and  in  turn  are 
fed  by  it,  are  a  part  of  our  heritage  from  the  past, — en- 
cumbrances upon  our  ancestral  estate.  We  are  still  paying 
the  price  of  our  fathers'  sins.  The  debt  is  not  yet  canceled. 
Payment  is  heavy  and  slow.  Being  a  racial  evil,  its  eradi- 
cation is  an  evolutionary  movement,  a  growth  into  which 
the  "process  of  the  suns"  must  go.  It  is  not  to  be  put  off 
in  an  instant  and  at  the  word  of  command.  It  must  be 
outgrown.  It  can  not  be  sloughed  like  a  worn-out  skin. 
It  is  too  deeply  embedded  in  the  structure  of  our  being 
for  that. 

In  keeping  the  traffic,  we  are  piling  up  for  our  posterity 
the  same  old  heritage  of  woe  our  ancestors  piled  up  for 

[45] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

us.  As  an  evidence  of  the  inheritance  the  present  genera- 
tion is  preparing  for  those  that  are  to  follow  it,  I  submit : — 

The  fact  that  the  death-rate  in  France  has  come  to  ex- 
ceed the  birth-rate,  and  that  the  consequent  depopulation 
of  France  is  due  more  than  to  any  other  single  factor  to 
the  excesses  of  her  people  in  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  ; 

The  fact  that  in  Manchester,  England,  during  the  Boer 
war,  out  of  twelve  thousand  recruits,  eight  thousand  were 
rejected  as  virtually  invalids,  and  only  twelve  hundred — 
one  in  ten — were  regarded  as  entirely  fit.  Fully  sixty 
per  cent,  of  all  offering  their  services  were  rejected,  and 
the  physical  impairment  of  London's  population  is  even 
worse.  The  demands  of  the  present  war  are  daily  accent- 
uating these  conditions. 

The  fact  that  in  Russia  drunkenness  had  become  such 
a  widespread  social  evil,  eating  away  the  lives  of  whole 
generations,  ruining  the  organism  not  only  of  women  and 
children  but  of  men,  that  the  government  has  been  com- 
pelled as  a  sheer  military  necessity  to  inhibit  the  traffic. 

And  the  final  fact  that  conditions  abroad  are  being  dupli- 
cated in  every  great  city  here. 

I  have  presented  briefly  and  imperfectly  the  primal  rea- 
son why  the  liquor  traffic  still  exists  in  America,  and  why 
it  will  continue  to  exist  here  and  elsewhere  for  years  to 
come.  I  now  crowd  it  into  a  single  sentence :  Sixty  cen- 
turies of  indulgence  and  dissipation !  Science,  medicine, 
and  sociology  affirm  it.  Every  laboratory  of  research  pro- 
claims it. 

The  second  reason,  more  subsidiary  than  primal,  but 
still  important,  lies  in  the  enormous  foreign  population 
that  has  recently  been  incorporated  into  our  citizenship 
and  the  social  life  of  our  people  (ten  million  immigrants 
in  twelve  years ! — one  out  of  every  nine  in  our  entire  popu- 
lation) ;  and  in  addition,  the  prolific  progeny  of  these  ten 
millions  which  has  been  born  since  their  arrival  here, — 

[46] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

a  turbulent,  engulfing,  continuing  stream.  These  new- 
comers are  alien  to  our  traditions,  unsteadied  by  training 
or  qualifying  associations,  and  many  of  them  the  most 
ignorant,  discordant,  and  recalcitrant  of  the  Old  World's 
corrupted  and  overflowing  masses.  The  world  is  not  their 
friend,  nor  the  world's  law.  Their  hands  are  against  all 
authority.  This  country  is  to  them  nothing  more  than  a  place 
to  get  their  daily  bread.  They  are  ignorant  of  its  history, 
strangers  to  its  institutions.  Its  flag  is  but  a  meaningless 
rag.  They  bring  with  them  Old  World  ideals  and  Old 
World  habits.  Unacquainted  with  liberty  there,  they  abuse 
it  here,  mistaking  their  new-found  freedom  for  license. 
Habits,  the  gratification  of  which  was  held  in  restraint 
there  for  lack  of  means,  find  opportunity  here  for  almost 
unrestrained  gratification.  Congregated  in  the  congested 
districts  of  the  great  cities  and  impaired  by  the  past's  un- 
toward heritage,  they  constitute  a  ready-handed  means 
through  which  and  by  which  the  liquor  traffic  has  been 
able  to  fasten  itself  like  a  vampire  upon  the  social  and 
political  life  of  the  nation.  If  the  question  of  the  traffic's 
annihilation  were  left  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  native-born 
citizenship  of  America,  its  end  would  be  quick  and  decisive. 
The  accuracy  of  this  conclusion  is  demonstrated  by  the 
fact  that  the  traffic  is  already  barred  from  the  rural  dis- 
tricts and  smaller  towns  and  cities  of  the  entire  country 
by  the  affirmative  action  of  the  people  residing  there. 
Rural  America  is  dry  in  sentiment  and  in  fact.  Only  urban 
America  is  wet.  This  is  conclusively  demonstrated  by  the 
recent  State-wide  elections  in  the  States  of  Colorado,  Vir- 
ginia, West  Virginia,  Arizona,  Oregon  and  Washington. 
The  rural  population  of  the  country  is  American,  three  to 
one.  The  urban  population  is  foreign-born,  in  many  cities 
two  to  one,  and  in  some  three  to  one. 

The   Federal  excise  tax  is  another  potent  reason  why 
the  liquor  traffic  still  continues.     The  exigencies  and  neces- 

[47] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

sities  of  war  coerced  the  reluctant  consent  of  President 
Lincoln  to  the  levying  of  a  heavy  excise  tax  on  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors.  With  him  it  was 
a  war  tax,  levied  in  a  necessitous  hour.  But  the  traffic 
was  prompt  to  comprehend  the  value  of  the  bribe  offered 
the  American  conscience  through  the  apparent  rehef  from 
the  burden  of  general  taxation  an  excise  tax  afforded,  and 
quick  to  recognize  the  worth  of  the  badge  of  legitimacy 
governmental  sanction  and  certificate  would  give  it. 

Immediately  preceding  the  civil  war  its  existence  had 
been  seriously  imperiled.  A  number  of  States  had  hedged 
it  about  with  limitation  and  restriction,  and  a  number  of 
others  had  inhibited  it  altogether.  Civil  war  alone  had 
stayed  the  movement  for  its  extinction.  It  knew  that 
with  the  return  of  peace  and  the  dissolution  of  the  perils 
of  war  its  right  to  exist  would  again  be  challenged. 

In  the  guise  of  a  burden-bearer  it  sought  the  shield  of 
governmental  sanction  and  protection,  believing  its  exist- 
ence would  be  thus  assured,  and  if  so,  willing  to  pay  for 
the  boon,  to  confess  itself  an  evil  and  to  submit  to  regula- 
tion,— regulation  which  it  knew  would  not  regulate,  regu- 
lation which  has  broken  down  and  failed  whenever  and 
wherever  tried,  from  then  till  now. 

The  necessitous  hour,  because  of  which  alone  Mr.  Lin- 
coln consented  to  the  principle,  passed  away,  but  the  tax 
remained.  The  bribe  succeeded.  And  the  principle  of 
governmental  sanction  for  cash-in-hand-paid  became  the 
settled  policy  of  all  government,  federal,  state,  and  municipal. 
For  fifty  years  the  children  of  the  Nation  have  been 
largely  educated  through  the  price  paid  by  the  traffic  in 
municipal  and  state  revenues  for  the  privilege  of  ravishing 
their  bodies,  breaking  their  wills,  impairing  their  intellects, 
and  corrupting  their  morals.  Enormous  revenues  have 
long  been  paid  by  the  traffic  into  public  treasuries,  and  in 
exchange  therefor  it  has  received  governmental  protection, 

[48] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

until  it  is  now  more  strongly  entrenched  as  an  institution 
among  our  people,  and  is  a  more  monstrous  peril  to  the 
physical,  industrial,  and  moral  efficiency  of  the  Nation,  than 
slavery  ever  was  : — 

Until  a  commerce  has  been  established,  "which,"  in  the 
forceful  language  of  ex-Vice-President  Fairbanks,  "strikes 
at  the  very  heart  of  all  we  hold  dear ;  which  debauches 
men,  undermines  the  very  foundations  upon  which  the 
home  rests,  and  imperils  our  social  order,  and  threatens 
the  moral  fiber  of  the  community  itself;" — 

Until,  risen  superior  to  all  authority  and  to  the  law 
itself,  it  regulates  and  controls  the  governments  of  great 
cities,  dictates  executive  messages,  usurps  the  preparation 
and  the  writing  of  legislative  enactments,  and  disputes  the 
sovereignty  of  the  State  itself. 

The  amount  of  the  annual  bribe  the  traffic  now  pays  to 
the  American  conscience  is  more  than  two  hundred  million 
dollars  in  federal  revenue  alone.  If  to  this  be  added  the 
annual  bribe  in  state,  county,  and  municipal  revenues, 
the  sum  would  be  greatly  augmented.  The  effect  has  been 
to  deaden  the  civic  conscience  of  the  Nation,  to  embed 
the  traffic  in  the  financial  affairs  of  all  government,  and 
to  give  it  the  sanctifying  seal  of  legahty.  With  this  gi- 
gantic revenue  ever  before  them,  men  are  wont  to  believe 
that  they  are  thereby  relieved  to  that  extent  from  the  bur- 
den of  taxation.  They  do  not  see  beyond  the  traffic's  bribe 
of  up-heaped  gold.  They  do  not  pause  to  count  the  cost 
and  ruin,  or  to  calculate  the  loss  in  physical,  mental,  in- 
dustrial, and  moral  efficiency  the  traffic  occasions,  its  en- 
ervating blight,  its  moral  degradation.  For  the  sake  of 
two  hundred  million  dollars  of  revenue  they  are  content 
to  pay  an  annual  drink  bill  aggregating  a  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars  !  Our  most  worthy  gov- 
ernment has  not  yet  attained  to  that  nobihty  that  impelled 
the  emperor  of  a  heathen  nation  nearly  three  quarters  of 

[49] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

a  century  ago  to  say  to  those  who  were  urging  him  to 
Hcense  the  opium  traffic,  "No,  I  will  not  take  a  revenue 
from  what  represents  the  vices  and  misfortunes  of  my 
people." 

For  the  sake  of  one  dollar  in  revenue  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment is  content  to  see  its  citizens  squander  eight  dollars 
and  seventy-five  cents  in  the  consumption  of  an  article 
that  injures  every  high  quality  of  citizenship  they  possess, 
and  adds  an  incalculable  burden  of  crime,  dependency,  and 
taxation.  It  condones  the  sin  because  the  sinner  contributes 
to  its  coffers.  The  moral  effect  has  been  and  is  disastrous.  Our 
conscience  has  been  deadened  until  we  are  willing  to  dethrone 
manhood  for  revenue,  and  to  discrown  womanhood  to  escape 
taxation.  This  brings  us  to  the  fourth  point,  or  to  the  second 
primal  reason, — Our  Absorbing,  AU-Consuming  Love  of 
Money.  We  tolerate  the  traffic  because  of  its  high  return  on  the 
labor  employed  and  the  capital  invested,  and  defend  and  pro- 
tect it  because  there  is  money  in  it  for  those  directly  engaged 
in  it.  We  are  so  eager  for  wealth  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to 
destroy  manhood  in  the  making  of  it;  it  is  more  sacred  than 
motherhood,  more  beloved  than  childhood.  To  obtain  it  we 
despoil  the  heritage  of  the  one,  and  trample  upon  the  heart 
of  the  other.  We  are  more  censurable  than  were  our 
fathers.  Apprised  of  the  evil,  we  accept  it,  silencing  our 
conscience  with  the  profit  it  brings,  and  hesitating  not, 
though  every  coin  we  receive  is  salt  with  tears,  every  bank- 
note odorous  with  blood. 

Knowing  the  true  and  living  God,  we  stoop  to  worship 
the  idols  of  the  market-place.  Possessing  freedom,  we 
value  only  that  which  figures  in  the  price  current. 

With  knowledge  that  there  is  no  nobility  but  character 
and  service,  we  are  satisfied  to  write  our  history  in  a  cash- 
book,  and  to  weigh  all  questions  of  right  and  wrong  in 
balances  of  trade.  We  recognize  no  higher  law  than  inter- 
est and  cupidity.     Possessed  by  a  consuming  love  of  the 

[50] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

sensual,  we  prefer  property  to  principle,  and  money  profit 
to  moral  sentiment.  Taking  advantage  of  our  weakness, 
this  predatory  and  destructive  traffic  has  entrenched  itself 
in  the  sordidness  of  our  natures  until  it  is  financially  im- 
pregnable.    Because  of  this  it  still  exists. 

The  Colossal  Power  of  the  Traffic — its  ability  to  injure 
men   and   parties — is   a   fifth   reason   why   it   still   exists.      It 
possesses  gigantic  wealth,  owns  vast  resources  of  property 
and  capital, — more  than  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars, 
— and  touches  the  financial  interests  of  many  men  in  every 
section   of   the   country.     Grown   rich   and    endowed   with 
colossal  and  irresponsible  power,  it  holds  an  impudent  and 
arrogant  lordship,  demands  the  reins  of  government,  and 
does  as  it  wills  with  the  authority  of  great  cities.     Its  every 
instinct  is  predatory  and  destructive.     It  intimidates  and 
corrupts  officials  elected  by  the  people  to  enforce  the  laws 
of  municipalities  and  of  commonwealths,  and  overrides  the 
law  when  it  wills.     An  abbot  of  unreason,  a  lord  of  mis- 
rule, it  takes  its  ease,  and  riots  at  pleasure.     There  is  no 
law  made  for  its  regulation  or  control  that  it  respects; 
no  ordinance  it  does  not  infract;  no  constitutional  provi- 
sion, however  solemn  or  sacred,  that  it  does  not  trample 
upon;  no  day  so  holy  that  it  does  not  desecrate  it.     It  has 
no  rehgion  but  the  greed  of  gain;  no  patriotism,  no  love, 
that  the  lust  of  gold  does  not  corrupt;  no  pity  that  avarice 
does  not  strangle.     It  knov/s  richer  streams  of  profit  than 
obedience  to  the  law  can  bring  it.     The  king  of  anarchy, 
it  keeps  its  forces  organized  and  compact,  round  as  a  can- 
non-ball.    All  act  together — every  brewer,  every  distiller, 
every    saloon    keeper,    and    the    manager    of    every   associate 
evil.     Politicians  in  and  out  of  office  fear  it, — those  who 
make  platforms,  and  those  who  are  ambitious.     Bold  and 
unscrupulous,  it  coaxes,  wheedles,  and  cajoles;  it  coerces, 
bullies,  and  intimidates,  by  parade  of  its  members  and  its 
power,  and  if  necessary,  corrupts  and  bribes,  until  licensing 

[51] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

boards  and  city  officials  yield  to  its  demands.  Then,  once 
in  the  saddle,  every  restriction  laid  upon  it  becomes  mean- 
ingless and  impotent.  The  most  sacred  holidays  are 
openly  desecrated.  Forbidden  hours  are  unobserved. 
Windows  are  darkened  with  screens.  Liquors  are  sold  to 
minors.  Wine-rooms  are  operated,  and  gambling  is  per- 
mitted. Punishment  rarely  if  ever  follows.  Licenses  are 
not  revoked.  Existing  Hcenses  are  renewed,  and  the  mo- 
nopoly is  continued.  All  that  has  been  provided  for  in 
advance.  When  arrests  are  made  and  convictions  found, 
the  guilty  perjure  themselves  when  necessary  in  their  ap- 
plications for  renewal  of  licenses.  Licensing  boards  make 
no  investigation,  and  the  renewal  is  granted. 

Because  of  its  power  to  injure  them,  men  in  business,  in 
professions,  and  in  politics,  men  who  hate  it  at  heart,  bow 
before  it,  worship  at  its  unholy  shrine,  and  weakly  do  its 
bidding.     For  this  reason  it  continues  to  exist. 

But  it  will  not  always  be  so.  I  have  an  imperturbable 
faith  that  its  domination  in  this  land  is  to  end;  that  its 
death  is  as  certain  as  the  evolution  of  the  race,  as  inevitable 
as  the  purposes  of  the  Almighty.  Nobody  is  stronger  than 
everybody.  No  combination  of  brewers,  distillers,  saloon 
keepers,  and  politicians  can  prevail  over  the  people,  once 
the  people  are  welded  by  the  indignation  of  insult.  An 
institution  founded  upon  human  wrong  can  not  abide.  It 
may  stand  for  a  while,  but  in  the  end  it  will  go  by  the  board. 
Arrogant  and  powerful  as  it  is,  its  days  are  numbered. 
We  ourselves  shall  be  privileged  to  see  the  dawn  of  the 
dynamic  hour  when  its  power  shall  be  broken.  A  force 
is  gathering  that  will  find  a  way  to  overthrow  it,  or  will 
make  one, — make  one  though  party  ties  be  rent  and  party 
affiliations  be  sundered. 

Increasing  numbers  of  men  are  coming  to  believe  the 
traffic  in  intoxicating  liquors  to  be  wrong,— wrong  not 
only  in  its  abuses,  but  wrong  in  its  very  nature,  wrong 

[52] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

per  se ;  as  morally  wrong  as  slavery  was  wrong,  or  as  the 
sale  of  diseased  meats  or  of  milk  impregnated  with  the 
germs  of  tuberculosis.  To  them  personal  ambition  has 
become  a  little  thing.  They  have  come  to  a  stand.  They 
will  trifle  no  further.  No  longer  mad  for  party,  place,  or 
power,  they  are  resolved  that  party  and  governmental  com- 
plicity in  the  traffic  shall  cease.  They  are  weary  of  denun- 
ciation in  the  abstract  and  acceptance  in  the  concrete. 
They  are  done  with  the  evasions  and  the  hucksterings  of 
politicians.  They  have  come  to  realize  that  without  moral 
genius  there  can  be  no  real  statesmanship.  They  mean 
to  make  the  coward  lips  speak  out.  They  are  prepared 
to  emphasize  their  belief  with  ballots.  And  they  can  not 
be  silenced  with  revenue  or  place,  or  coerced  by  the  crack 
and  lash  of  the  party  whip.  The  opponents  of  slavery 
were  never  more  deeply  stirred  by  conviction,  and  were 
never  more  resolute  or  militant  than  these  men  are.  Sin- 
cere, earnest,  and  purposeful,  they  will  be  heard,  and  they 
must  be  reckoned  with. 

There  are  others — multitudes  of  them — who,  not  yet 
conceding  that  the  traffic  is  wrong  per  se,  but  concerned 
at  its  economic  waste  and  alarmed  by  its  social  dangers, 
its  domination  of  political  parties,  its  control  of  execu- 
tives and  of  legislators,  its  utter  disregard  of  law,  and 
its  flagrant  and  continuous  defiance  of  all  restraint  and 
authority,  are  convinced  that,  as  now  conducted  and  rep- 
resented by  the  American  brewery  and  the  American 
saloon,  the  traffic  is  an  imminent  menace  to  the  economic 
and  social  welfare  of  the  State  and  the  Nation,  and  are 
prepared  to  join  in  the  movement  for  its  annihilation. 
The  revolt  is  wide-spread.  It  embraces  the  Nation,  and 
includes  men  of  all  sections  and  of  all  parties. 

I  am  privileged  these  days  to  see  much  of  the  country, 
and  to  meet  thousands  of  the  people,  traveling  and  speak- 
ing, within  the  year  in  every  state  in  the  Union,  and  I  find 

[53] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

this  feeling  everywhere  and  among  all  people.  The  enmity 
against  the  traffic  is  deep,  profound,  and  abiding.  It  is  not 
an  enmity  against  a  man,  or  men, — an  enmity  that  passes  with 
the  personal  difference  that  begets  it.  It  is  an  enmity  against 
a  thing — against  the  traffic,  against  the  system,  against  a 
closely  organized  and  a  sordid  and  wicked  special  interest, 
and  above  all,  against  its  further  domination  of  party  councils 
and  governmental  action. 


[54] 


TELL  THE  TRUTH. 

Let  us  go  this  road  though  we  go  aknee. 

Let  us  lift  our  hands  and  loose  our  tongues  and  tell  the 
truth  about  this  foe  of  human  kind. 

Let  us  tell  the  truth  about  it,  aye,  tell  the  truth ! 

Tell  it: 

Until  its  wickedness  shall  be  laid  bare ; 

Until  the  poverty  it  creates  shall  cease  to  be; 

Until  the  pauperism  it  produces  shall  disappear; 

Until  its  wrongs  to  womanhood  and  its  injustice  to  child- 
hood shall  be  exposed; 

Until  almshouses  and  hospitals  shall  be  no  longer  needed 
to  house  the  defectives  it  creates; 

Until  jails  and  prisons  shall  be  emptied  of  its  victims; 

Until  the  insanity  it  begets  shall  cloud  the  intellects  of 
men  no  more ; 

Until  the  crime  it  impels  shall  no  longer  be  laid  upon  the 
souls  of  men; 

Until  murder  shall  stop  its  riot  and  arson  its  carnival ; 

Until  men  shall  see  it  with  the  blood  upon  its  naked, 
knotted  hands; 

Until  fathers  shall  cease  to  neglect  their  offspring; 

Until  mothers  need  fear  no  more  for  the  children  they 
bear; 

Until  childhood,  robbed  no  longer  of  its  birthright,  shall 
receive  a  fair  chance  and  a  square  deal  from  every  man 
and  woman  beneath  the  flag; 

Until  this  corrupter  of  boys,  this  ravisher  of  girls,  this 
despoiler  of  homes,  shall  stand  condemned,  with  sentence 
of  death  pronounced  against  it,  arrayed  for  execution ; 

Until  the  Nation  shall  hear,  and  hearing,  be  convinced; 

Until  the  public  conscience  shall  cry  out ; 

Until  dumb  tongues  speak  and  dead  feet  start; 

[55] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Until  men  shall  feel  anew  the  Cromwell  fire,  the  Lincoln 
consecration ; 

Until  the  race  shall  stand  forever  freed  of  its  curse; 

Until  this  Republic  shall  become  a  saloonless  land,  this 
flag  a  stainless  flag. 


156] 


FALLACIES  EXPOSED. 

WE  are  engaged  in  a  great  Nation-wide  movement  for 
the  abolition  of  the  liquor  traffic  in  State  and  Nation, 
by  constitutional  inhibition — a  campaign  continental 
in  its  scope,  including  every  State  in  the  Union,  every  State 
capital,  the  National  capital  at  Washington,  every  great  educa- 
tional center — two  hundred  fifty  great  cities.  In  this  cam- 
paign we  sound  no  partisan  call.  Our  appeal  is  broader 
than  that.  It  is  to  the  manhood  and  womanhood  of  all  par- 
ties. We  seek  to  raise  a  new  banner  throughout  the  land, 
to  which  the  wise  and  the  good  of  every  party,  sect  and 
creed  may  repair. 

We  are  Hving  in  a  dynamic,  triumphant  hour.  The  rum 
traffic  is  on  the  defensive  everywhere  the  world  around — 
on  the  defensive  in  the  church,  in  the  school  and  in  the 
home;  on  the  defensive  in  the  mine  and  in  factory,  in  store 
and  in  counting-room ;  on  the  defensive  on  every  railway 
system  in  the  land  and  in  every  profession  and  occupation 
where  integrity  and  efficiency  are  required;  on  the  de- 
fensive in  Russia,  in  France,  in  Great  Britain,  and  in  war- 
encircled  Germany;  on  the  defensive  on  battle-ship,  dread- 
naught  and  submarine,  and  in  the  trenches;  on  the  de- 
fensive everywhere  where  men  are  at  grips  with  fate ! 

No  thoughtful  man  of  character  now  defends  it  upon 
either  moral  or  economic  ground.  We  have  driven  it 
absolutely  from  the  first  of  these  fields  and  are  now  driving 
it  step  by  step  from  the  domain  of  the  second. 

In  the  great  debate  at  Washington  in  December  on  the 
Hobson  Resolution  providing  for  an  amendment  to  the 
Federal  Constitution  ending  the  liquor  traffic  in  this  coun- 
try, no  man  arose  to  defend  the  traffic  upon  either  moral  or 
economic  ground,  or  upon  any  merit  w^hatever  of  its 
own.  Indeed,  all  seemed  ready  to  confess  that  it  had  no 
merit.    It  had  defenders  and  defense,  but  its  defenders  did 

[57] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

not  dare  defend  it  upon  either  of  these  grounds.  The  rea- 
sons given  why  the  Resolution  should  not  be  submitted  to 
the  people  were,  in  every  instance,  based  upon  subsidiary 
grounds.  It  was  said  the  Resolution  ought  not  to  pass 
for  the  reason  that  if  it  did,  and  should  be  adopted  by  the 
people,  it  would  change  the  form  and  revolutionize  the 
character  of  the  Federal  Government ;  that  the  Federal 
Government  in  its  form  and  character  was  a  legacy  be- 
queathed to  us  by  the  fathers  and  should  be  preserved  by 
us  and  transmitted  unimpaired  to  our  posterity. 

This  argument  was  reiterated  a  few  weeks  later  by  a 
former  President  of  the  United  States,  in  a  speech  delivered 
in  Boston  before  the  assembled  bar  of  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts. I  refer  to  the  late  lamented  William  Howard 
Taft.  I  do  not,  however,  mean  to  speak  in  disrespect  of 
him.  I  know  him  to  be  a  great  man.  I  know  him  to  be  a 
man  of  clean  life.  He  has  been  President  of  my  country. 
I  voted  for  him — voted  for  him  twice.  But  I  know  of  no 
man  who  ever  held  that  exalted  position  who  so  persistently 
and  so  continuously  throughout  his  term  misunderstood 
and  misinterpreted  the  thought  and  purpose  of  his  coun- 
trymen. And  I  know  of  no  man  who  ever  held  it  who  ever 
received  such  chastisement  at  the  hands  of  his  countrymen. 
It  must  be  said,  however,  and  said  to  his  credit,  that  no 
man  in  the  history  of  the  Nation,  having  received  at  the 
hands  of  his  countrymen  such  discipline  as  he  received, 
ever  accepted  it  with  such  grace  and  fortitude.  Nor  do  I 
speak  of  him  in  any  partisan  sense.  I  ask  you  to  disabuse 
your  minds  of  all  that.  Nor  have  I  any  personal  quarrel 
with  him.  My  difference  is  with  his  utterances,  with  the 
fallacies  he  proclaims. 

Mr.  Taft  is  a  great  lawyer.  He  is  a  profound  student 
of  the  science  of  government.  He  is  familiar  wnth  every 
great  elemental  principle  found  in  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion. Any  statement  he  might  make  to  the  American  people 

^  [58] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

concerning  a  matter  as  grave  as  that  in  issue  here,  ought 
to  receive  the  candid,  serious  and  thoughtful  consideration 
of  his  countrymen.  The  issue  as  interpreted  by  him  in- 
volves a  profound  matter.  A  change  in  the  form,  or  the 
revolution  of  the  character  of,  the  government  of  my  coun- 
try, would  concern  me  profoundly.  It  ought  to  concern  you 
profoundly.  I  believe  in  the  Federal  Government,  in  the 
great  compact  of  government  the  fathers  framed.  They 
were  children  of  a  mighty  time.  In  what  they  did  they 
served  the  race  transcendently.  I  revere  them  every  one  and 
hold  high  allegiance  to  every  fundamental  principle  that 
can  be  found  in  the  pact  of  government  they  framed,  and 
if  I  believed  this  amendment  to  the  Constitution  would 
change  the  form  and  revolutionize  the  character  of  that 
government,  I  would  go  back  to  my  home  tonight  and 
never  raise  my  voice  again  in  behalf  of  Federal  interven- 
tion against  this  traffic,  much  as  I  desire  that  blessed 
consummation. 

I  have  said  to  you  that  the  former  President  is  a  great 
lawyer,  that  he  is  a  profound  student  of  the  science  of 
government,  that  he  is  familiar  with  every  elemental  prin- 
ciple contained  in  the  Federal  Constitution.  But  I,  too,  in 
a  modest  way,  am  a  lawyer.  I,  too,  in  an  humble  way,  am 
a  student  of  the  science  of  government.  I,  too,  claim,  with 
all  humiHty,  some  familiarity  with  the  great  fundamentals 
of  the  Federal  Constitution.  And  as  a  lawyer,  as  a  student 
of  the  science  of  government  and  as  one  having  some 
knowledge  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  this  govern- 
ment, I  find  myself  utterly  unable  to  agree  with  the  con- 
clusion of  the  former  President  in  this  matter.  The  gravity 
of  the  issue  as  interpreted  by  him  led  me,  as  it  ought  to 
lead  you,  to  an  analysis  of  his  contention.  No  matter  what 
the  position  a  man  may  occupy,  or  what  his  prestige  may 
be,  you  ought  not  to  follow  his  dictum  in  so  grave 
a    matter    until    you    have    learned    by    investigation    and 

[59] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

analysis  that  his  statements  are  based  upon  fact  and  rea- 
son, and  if,  upon  examination  you  find  that  his  statements 
do  not  have  their  basis  in  both  fact  and  reason,  then  you 
ought  not  to  accept  his  statements  or  follow  him  in  his 
conclusion. 

You  could  not  change  the  form  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment or  revolutionize  its  character  without  changing  the 
form  and  revolutionizing  the  character  of  one  or  more  of 
the  great  fundamental  principles  that  go  to  make  it  up. 
This  leads  at  once  and  directly  to  the  inquiry,  "What  are 
the  fundamentals  of  the  Federal  Constitution  and  which 
one  of  them  will  be  changed  in  its  form  or  revolutionized 
in  its  character  by  an  amendment  to  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution ending  the  liquor  traffic  in  this  Nation?" 

I  shall  attempt  to  answer  that  inquiry  here  tonight.  And 
I  hope  there  are  lawyers  present.  While  I  am  speaking  to 
the  laymen  of  the  Nation,  and  making  my  appeal  to  them, 
I  hope  there  are  lawyers  here,  for  I  am  conscious  that 
what  I  say,  in  the  end  will  have  to  square  itself  with  their 
learning  and  their  reasoning,  or  I  will  lose  this  debate. 
If  there  are  lawyers  here  I  say  to  them,  and  I  say  to  you, 
that  there  are  in  the  Federal  Constitution  but  four  great 
fundamental  principles — only  four — no  more.  Every  other 
provision  is  but  ancillary,  every  other  requirement  but  a 
means  to  the  consummation  of  these  four — a  fringe  as  it 
were,  to  the  great  garment. 

What  are  these  principles? 

First :  The  representative,  democratic,  republican  form 
of  government  the  Constitution  creates.  Our  fathers  knew 
the  peril  of  despotism,  they  knew,  too,  the  peril  of  unre- 
strained democracy,  and  they  proposed  to  rear  here  a 
fabric  of  government  equally  removed  from  the  peril  of  the 
one  and  the  peril  of  the  other;  so  they  framed  and  fash- 
ioned a  representative  form  of  government,  providing  for 
the   delegation   of   power  by   the   people   to    representatives, 

[60] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

so  that  the  people  through  representatives  chosen  by  them- 
selves  could  administer  the  government.     I  believe   in  this 
principle  of  the  Federal  Government.    I  believe  in  it  so  pro- 
foundly that  if  it  were  necessary  I  would  give  my  life  to 
preserve  it.    But  I  pause  to  ask  the  former  President,  how, 
in  what  way  and  in  what  degree  would  an  amendment  to  the 
Federal   Constitution   ending   the   liquor   traffic   in   America, 
change   the    form  or   revolutionize   the   character   of  this 
principle  of  the  Federal  Constitution?     And  it  does   not 
require  the  prestige   of   a   term   in   the   Presidency,    or   the 
learning  of  a  lawyer  to  find  the  answer.     For  he  who  runs 
may  read  the  answer.    There  is  not  a  man,  there  is  not  a 
woman,  in  this  audience  who  does  not  know  upon  reflec- 
tion that  such  an  amendment  would  not  alter  in  the  slight- 
est degree  this  principle  of  the  Federal  Constitution.     (Ap- 
plause.)    After    the    adoption    of    such    an    amendment    the 
representative  character  of  this  government  would  remain 
precisely  what  it  now  is.     We  would  still  continue  to  enact 
federal  legislation  through  a  congress  chosen  by  the  people 
and    delegated    with    authority    to    enact    legislation.     We 
would  continue  to  execute  and  enforce  the  law  through  a 
President  elected  by  the  people  and  delegated  with  power  from 
them  to  administer  the  government.    So,  upon  analysis  we 
find  that  such  an  amendment  would  not  change  or  alter 
by  the  weight  of  a  hair  this  first  great  primary  principle 
of  the  Federal  Constitution.     Therefore,  it  could  not  have 
been  this  principle  to  which  the  former  President  adverted, 
for  if  he  meant  this  one  there  is  neither  fact  nor  reason  as  a 
basis  for  his  Boston  dictum. 

What  is  the  second  great  fundamental  principle  of  the 
Federal  Constitution?  That  is  found  in  the  dual  character 
of  the  government  it  creates.  Our  fathers  were  building 
for  the  centuries.  They  foresaw  that  the  three  millions  of 
people  for  whom  they  were  then  forming  a  government 
would   soon   be   an   hundred   millions;   they   knew   that   the 

[61] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

narrow  strip  of  territory  stretching  along  the  Atlantic,  thin 
as   a   ribbon,   then   inhabited   by   their   countrymen,   would 
soon  extend  until  its  shores  would  be  washed  by  the  waters 
of  the  seven  seas;  and  they  knew  that  such  a  people,  in- 
habiting such  a  land,  would  develop  interests  as  diversified 
and  multitudinous  as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  and  they  knew 
that  all  power  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  great  central  gov- 
ernment would  be  destructive  of  the  liberties  of  such  a 
people.    So  they  devised  an  anomaly  in  government,  a  thing 
the  world  had  never  known.     They  created  a  number  of 
state  governments.    They  charged  these  governments  with 
all  authority,  with  all  power,  in  domestic  affairs;  in  that 
respect   they   made   them   supreme   and   sovereign.     Then 
they    erected    over    them    a   great    Federal    Government    and 
clothed  it  with  exclusive  power  in  all  things  affecting  the 
Nation  as  a  whole,  all  things  national  in  scope,  or  character, 
and  in  its  field  made  it  supreme  and  sovereign.     So  they 
gave  us  this  "Many  In  One,"  this  triumphant  achievement, 
forty-eight    independent,    sovereign    States,    under    a    great, 
sovereign,  central  government.     I  believe  in  that.     I  be- 
lieve in  it  profoundly.    But  I  pause  to  ask  the  former  Presi- 
dent how,  in  what  manner,  and  in  what  degree,  would  an 
amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  ending  the  liquor 
traffic  in  America,  afifect  this  second  great  principle  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States?    And  is  there  a  man  in 
this    audience    who    does    not    know,    that    after    such    an 
amendment    there   would    continue    forty-eight    sovereign 
state  governments  within  one  great  national  government, 
precisely  as  now,  each  clothed  with  all  the  sovereignty  and 
power  it  now  holds  ?    It  would  not  change  that  principle  of 
this  government  by  the  weight  of  a  hair.     Does  any  man 
believe   such   an   amendment   would   change   the    form    or 
revolutionize  the  character  of  the  government  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Indiana?     The  truth  is,  that  after  such  an 
amendment   the   state   government    of   Indiana    would    re- 

[62] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

main  precisely  what  it  is  today.  So  it  could  not  be  this 
second  great  fundamental  principle  of  the  government  to 
which  the  former  President  adverted,  for  if  he  meant  this 
one  there  is  neither  fact  nor  reason  as  a  basis  for  his  con- 
tention. 

The  third  great  principle  of  the  Federal  Constitution  is 
found  in  its  separation  of  the  government  into  depart- 
ments, thus  separating  and  distributing  the  powers  of  the 
government  into  distinct  and  separate  hands.  Our  fathers 
— the  men  who  formed  this  great  charter  of  liberty — were 
profound  students  of  the  science  of  government,  some  of 
them  unmatched  in  the  history  of  the  world.  They  had 
ransacked  the  libraries  of  the  earth  for  fact  and  precedent. 
The  known  history  of  the  race  was  before  them.  There 
was  no  government  the  world  had  known  with  which  they 
were  not  familiar.  There  were  twenty  men  in  that  con- 
vention, either  one  of  whom  could  have  told  every  funda- 
mental principle  of  every  government  that  had  ever  been, 
and  they  knew  that  all  power  lodged  in  a  single  depart- 
ment of  government  would  be  fatal  to  human  liberty.  To 
illustrate:  They  knew  it  was  fatal  to  human  liberty  to  put 
the  purse  and  the  sword  in  one  and  the  same  hand,  so  they 
said,  "We  will  create  here  three  great  departments  of  govern- 
ment ;  we  will  make  them  co-ordinate  and  independent.  The 
first  department  we  will  call  the  legislative  department.  That 
department  shall  be  composed  of  a  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  and  we  will  put  into  its  hands  the  purse,  but  we  will 
be  careful  that  it  shall  not  receive  the  sword,  and  a  purse 
without  a  sword  is  harmless.  We  will  clothe  it  with  legis- 
lative power,  make  it  independent  and  co-ordinate  with  the 
other  departments ;  we  will  make  it  a  check,  a  balance  upon 
the  others."  Then  they  said,  "We  will  create  another  de- 
partment which  we  will  call  the  executive  department.  We 
will  put  into  its  hands  all  power  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment, and  to  enforce  the  law,  and  that  it  may  have  power 

[63] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  enforce  the  law  we  will  give  it  the  sword,  but  we  will 
be  careful  not  to  give  it  the  purse,  and  a  sword  without  a 
purse  is  harmless.  Then,  that  neither  of  these  departments 
may  encroach  upon  the  other,  that  a  true  balance  may  be 
held  between  the  two,  we  will  create  another  department, 
a  judicial  department."  So  they  gave  to  the  American 
people  this  triangular  pyramid  of  liberty  and  of  power.  I 
believe  in  it,  believe  in  it  profoundly.  I  would  not  change 
it  if  I  could.  But  I  pause  to  ask  the  great  ex-President 
how,  in  what  way  and  in  what  degree  would  an  amendment 
to  the  Federal  Constitution  ending  the  liquor  traffic  in 
America  change  by  so  much  as  the  weight  of  a  hair  this 
third  great  principle  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  And 
there  is  not  a  schoolboy  in  the  City  of  Indianapolis  that 
does  not  know  that  after  the  adoption  of  such  an  amend- 
ment all  of  these  departments  would  remain  precisely  what 
they  now  are,  each  holding  all  the  power  and  jurisdiction 
and  authority  it  now  holds.  So  it  could  not  have  been  this 
third  great  fundamental  principle  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  which  the  ex-President  adverted,  for  if  he  meant 
this  one,  there  is  neither  fact  nor  reason  for  his  Boston 
dictum. 

That  leaves  but  the  fourth,  and  last,  of  the  great  funda- 
mentals of  the  Federal  Constitution  for  our  consideration. 
This  is  found  in  that  provision  of  the  Constitution  which 
creates  a  judicial  department  and  clothes  it  with  authority 
to  interpret  the  Constitution  and  to  construe  statutes,  state 
and  national.  I  believe  in  the  Federal  judiciary.  The 
crowning  glory  of  the  great  pact  of  government  our 
fathers  gave  us  Hes  in  the  independent,  unreachable  judi- 
ciary which  they  provided,  a  judiciary  placed  beyond  the 
reach  of  might,  or  hate,  or  greed,  or  craft.  We  have  re- 
cently received  here  a  high  demonstration  of  the  wisdom 
that  gave  us  a  Federal  judiciary  and  put  it  out  of  the  reach 
of  greed  or  malice  or  hate— and  we  have   found  it  here 

[64] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

what  we  have  always  found  it,  a  safe  arbiter  of  the  rights 
of  the  people.  I  beheve  in  that  principle,  I  would  not 
change  it  if  I  could.  But  I  pause  to  ask  the  great  ex- 
President  how,  in  what  way,  and  in  what  degree  would  an 
amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  ending  the  hquor 
traffic  in  America  affect  or  change  this  last  great  principle 
of  the  Federal  Constitution.  And  is  there  a  man  or  a 
woman  here  who  believes,  upon  thoughtful  consideration, 
that  such  an  amendment  would  affect  the  power,  authority 
or  jurisdiction  now  vested  in  the  hands  of  the  Federal  judi- 
ciary? You  know  all  this  would  remain  precisely  as  it 
now  is.  So  it  could  not  be  this  last  great  fundamental  of 
the  Federal  Constitution  to  which  the  former  President 
adverted,  for  if  he  meant  this  one  we  now  know  there  is 
neither  fact  nor  reason  as  a  basis  for  his  contention. 

And  so,  on  analysis,  I  found  what  you  have  found,  that 
there  is  neither  fact  nor  reason  to  support  the  dictum  of 
Mr.  Taft,  and  having  found  that  to  be  true,  I  refuse  to 
follow  him.  I  will  not  follow  any  man  where  my  sense  of 
justice  and  reason  forbids  that  I  should  go.  (Applause.) 
The  man  that  expects  me  to  follow  him  must  lead  me  by 
reason's  lamp,  he  must  walk  by  the  light  of  truth  and  of 

fact.  , 

"But,"  said  the  great  ex-President  in  his  Boston  speech, 
"the  regulation  or  prohibition  of  the  hquor  traffic  is  not  a 
national  issue;  it  is  a  question  for  the  States  themselves  a 
domestic  problem  which  belongs  to  the  sovereignty  of  the 
States  It  is  a  thing  with  which  the  sovereignty  of  the 
several  States  ought  alone  to  deal."  But  no  man  m 
America  is  so  delicately  situated  as  to  that  matter  as 
Wilham  Howard  Taft.  Hear  me,  men ;  men  and  women, 
hear  me!  There  is  not  a  court  of  last  resort  in  America— 
and  again  I  challenge  my  lawyer  friends— there  is  not  a 
court  of  last  resort  in  America  that  has  passed  upon  the 
question  in  thirty  years,  that  has  not  declared,  in  decision 

[65] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

duly  handed  down,  the  Hquor  traffic  to  be  a  thing  so  inimi- 
cal to  the  public  welfare;  so  destructive  of  the  social  com- 
pact, so  injurious  to  the  body  politic,— so  injurious,  so 
destructive,  so  inimical— that  no  man  can  have  an  inherent 
or  constitutional  right  to  engage  in  it.  And  when  the 
courts  of  America  began  to  say  that  to  us,  then  we  began 
to  say  to  the  liquor  traffic,  "If  you  are  as  bad  as  that,  we 
will  regulate  you,  we  will  restrain  you,  we  will  restrict 
you.  we  will  control  you,  we  will  name  time  and  place  and 
circuii: stance  under  which  you  may  be  conducted,"  and 
we  did  that  in  every  State  in  this  Union.  But  what  answer 
did  the  liquor  traffic  make?  Its  answer  was  the  infraction 
of  every  statute  made  for  its  regulation;  the  breaking  of 
every  law  enacted  for  its  control;  the  violation  of  every 
ordinance  made  for  its  restraint.  It  rose  above  the  statutes ; 
rose  above  the  law,  and  claimed  for  itself  a  thing  not 
claimed  by  any  other  interest  or  individual  beneath  the 
flag,— the  right  to  violate  the  law  at  its  will,  the  privilege 
of  challenging  the  right  of  the  American  people  to  govern 
themselves.  Then  we  said  to  it,  "If  you  are  as  bad  as  that, 
if  you  will  not  be  restrained,  if  you  will  not  be  regulated, 
if  you  will  not  be  controlled,  if  there  is  no  law  that  you  will 
respect,  we  will  clothe  the  electors  of  cities  and  of  townships 
with  power  through  the  ballot  to  exclude  you  entirely  from 
such  communities,"  and  we  did  give  such  power  to  the 
electors  of  cities  and  townships,  and  the  people  in  thou- 
sands of  townships  and  in  hundreds  of  cities  in  the  several 
States  of  the  Union,  acting  under  such  laws,  inhibited  the 
traffic  in  such  communities. 

But  what  answer  did  the  liquor  traffic  make?  It  had  no 
more  regard  for  the  expressed  sovereignty  of  the  electors 
of  a  township,  no  more  respect  for  the  expressed  sover- 
eignty and  will  of  the  electors  of  a  city,  than  it  had  had  for 
regulative  and  restrictive  statutes  and  ordinances.  It  rose 
above  the  expressed   sovereignty  of  the  people   of   these 

[66] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

townships  and  cities,  as  it  had  risen  above  all  statutes  and 
ordinances  made  for  its  regulation,  and  from  places  out- 
side of  them  it  shipped  its  accursed  product  into  dry  cities 
and  dry  townships,  breaking  down  the  law  and  tramphng 
upon  the  sovereignty  of  the  people;  and  when  it  had 
wrought  its  will,  when  it  was  triumphant  over  the  pros- 
trate sovereignty  of  the  people  of  these  communities,  it 
laughed  at  their  humiliation  and  discomfiture  and  said, 
"You  see  you  cannot  prohibit  ME,  I  am  above  your  sover- 
eignty, I  am  greater  than  you  are."  And  then  we  said  to 
it,  "If  you  are  as  bad  as  that,  if  you  will  not  respect  the 
expressed  sovereignty  of  the  people  of  township  or  city, 
we  will  increase  the  area  of  the  unit  of  decision  and  we 
will  give  the  people  of  whole  counties  the  right  to  vote 
upon  your  exclusion,"  and  we  did.  We  did  it  here  in 
Indiana.  We  gave  the  people  that  right,  and  in  seventy  out 
of  the  ninety-two  counties  in  the  State,  by  an  aggregate 
majority  of  more  than  seventy-five  thousand,  the  people 
prohibited  the  traffic!     (Applause.) 

But  what  answer  did  it  make  to  that?  We  had  put 
behind  the  people  and  their  decision  the  governmental  ma- 
chinery of  the  country — but  what  answer  did  it  make? 
The  same  old  answer.  It  had  no  more  respect  for  the  ex- 
pressed sovereignty  of  the  people  of  a  county  than  it  had 
had  for  that  of  the  people  of  a  township  or  city,  and  from 
the  twenty-two  counties  outside  the  seventy  dry  counties 
in  this  State,  it  shipped  its  accursed  product  into  the  seventy 
dry  counties,  breaking  down  the  will  and  defying  the  ex- 
pressed sovereignty  of  the  people  of  such  counties.  Then 
in  sixteen  States  of  the  Union  the  people  said  to  it,  "If  you 
are  as  bad  as  that,  if  you  will  not  obey  any  statute,  if  you 
will  not  give  heed  to  the  expressed  sovereignty  of  the 
people  of  a  township,  or  city,  or  county,  then  by  State  en- 
actment, by  amendment  of  State  Constitutions,  by  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  highest  sovereignty  of  which  we  are  capable, 

[67] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

we  will  exclude  you  from  our  State,"  and  in  sixteen  States 
such  enactments  were  passed,  or  such  amendments 
adopted,  and  the  traffic  in  such  States  made  unlawful. 

But  what  answer  did  it  then  make  ?  The  precise  answer 
it  made  before.  It  had  no  more  respect  for  the  expressed 
sovereignty  of  these  sixteen  great  Commonwealths  than  it 
had  for  the  expressed  sovereignty  of  a  township  or  city 
ward.  It  went  just  beyond  the  borders  of  the  State  pro- 
hibiting it,  just  across  the  line,  and  there,  hiding  under  a 
clause  in  the  Federal  Constitution — the  Interstate  Com- 
merce clause — it  shipped  its  product  into  the  dry  State, 
breaking  down  the  sovereignty  of  the  State,  trampling 
upon  its  laws,  defying  its  authority  and  its  power.  And 
then  in  these  sixteen  States  the  people  said  to  the  Federal 
Congress,  "We  have  inhibited  the  liquor  traffic  in  sixteen 
States  of  the  Union  by  the  highest  act  of  sovereignty  of 
which  we  are  capable ;  we  have  put  back  of  our  decision 
the  sovereign  authority  and  power  of  these  Common- 
wealths ;  but  the  liquor  traffic,  hiding  under  a  clause  in  the 
Federal  Constitution,  breaks  down  our  sovereignty,  and 
tramples  upon  the  expressed  will  of  our  people,  and  we 
want  you,  Mr.  Congress,  to  enact  a  law  that  will  give  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States  power  over  an  interstate  ship- 
ment of  liquor  the  moment  it  crosses  the  State  line."  Con- 
gress answered  by  passing  such  a  law,  but  William  Howard 
Taft,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  vetoed  it.  Holding 
your  commission,  speaking  for  you,  he  vetoed  it,  and  why? 
Because,  "it  was  an  unwarranted  and  an  unconstitutional 
delegation  of  Federal  power  to  the  States." 

And  here  I  spit  him  like  a  fly  to  the  wall — like  a  fly  to 
the  wall — despite  his  three  hundred  pounds  of  avoirdupois. 
If  you  doubt  it,  watch  him  and  see  him  wriggle.  As  a 
lawyer,  speaking  in  the  city  of  Boston,  he  declares  the  pro- 
hibition of  the  liquor  traffic  to  be  a  thing  for  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  several  States.     As  President  of  the  United 

[68] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

States,  acting  under  the  solemnity  of  his  oath  of  office, 
over  his  official  signature,  he  declares  that  such  an  exten- 
sion of  authority  over  the  liquor  traffic  to  the  States  would 
be  an  "unwarranted  and  an  unconstitutional  delegation  of 
Federal  power."  My  friends,  the  riding,  at  the  same  time, 
of  two  horses  going  in  opposite  directions,  has  always 
seemed  to  me  to  be  a  hazardous  performance,  and  in  this 
instance  it  seems  so  clearly  dangerous,  that  I  decline  to 
follow  tny  ill-fated  friend.     (Applause.) 

So  much  for  his  dictum  that  this  is  a  domestic  and  not  a 
Federal  question.  But  before  I  leave  it,  I  want  anothei 
word.  Take  the  State  of  Indiana.  If  we  were  to  prohibit 
this  traffic  in  this  State  (which,  God  helping  us,  we'll  do 
in  the  near  future),  (applause)  do  you  know  what  would 
happen?  From  the  State  of  Kentucky,  from  Ohio  and 
from  lUinois,  hiding  under  this  provision  of  the  Federal 
Constitution — the  Interstate  Commerce  clause — this  hate- 
ful traffic  would  ship  its  product  into  the  Commonwealth, 
and  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  could  not  successfully  pre- 
vent it.  It  would  lack  the  power  as  Maine  lacks  it,  as 
Kansas  lacks  it.  But  even  so,  State  prohibition  is  infinitely 
better  than  license.  Better  per  se,  and  better,  infinitely 
better,  as  another  great  step  toward  the  ultimate  goal— 
the  National  prohibition  of  the  whole  traffic. 

Before  we  accomplish  its  complete  and  final  overthrow 
we  will  have  to  go  higher  than  State  action ;  we  will  have 
to  follow  it  to  its  lair;  go  where  it  is.  And  when  we  find 
its  lair,  we  will  find  it  in,  and  protected  by,  the  Federal 
Constitution.  And  before  we  can  reach  it  we  will  have  to 
amend  the  Federal  Constitution  and  strip  the  traffic  of  its 
protection.  The  amendment  of  the  Federal  Constitution  is 
a  Federal  question.  We  cannot  amend  the  Federal  Constitution 
without  Federal  action.  By  hiding  under,  and  taking  refuge 
in,  this  clause  in  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  by  declaring 
a  delegation  of  power  over  interstate  shipments  of  liquor 

[69] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  the  States,  to  be  an  unwarranted  and  unconstitutional 
delegation  of  Federal  power  to  the  States,  the  liquor 
traffic  and  William  Howard  Taft  have  made  the  prohibition 
of  the  traffic  a  Federal  question  and  a  National  issue,  and 
it  will  remain  a  Federal  question  and  a  National  issue, 
knocking  at  the  door  of  Congress  until  that  door  opens  and 
an  affirmative  answer  is  made.  It  will  remain  a  Federal 
question  and  a  National  issue,  knocking  at  the  door  of  the 
White  House  at  Washington,  until  some  new  Abraham 
Lincoln,  keeping  step  with  the  progress  of  the  race,  and 
catching  a  vision  of  a  saloonless  land,  a  sober  people,  and 
a  stainless  flag,  shall  issue  a  new  emancipation  proclama- 
tion.    (Applause.) 

It  will  remain  a  Federal  question  and  a  National  issue, 
dissolving  parties  if  need  be,  and  from  their  disintegrating 
fragments  creating  a  new  party,  one  which  will  dare  to 
do  right  by  standing  four  square  on  this  matter.  Do  not 
misunderstand  me ;  do  not  go  away  and  say  the  mission 
of  the  Flying  Squadron  is  to  create  a  new  political  party, 
for  if  you  do,  you  will  be  stating  something  that  is  not 
true.  The  mission  of  the  Flying  Squadron  is  to  correct  the 
fallacies  of  such  men  as  WilHam  Howard  Taft ;  its  mission 
is  to  stir  the  heart  of  the  Nation ;  to  educate  the  public 
mind ;  to  crystallize  public  sentiment ;  to  give  an  edge  of 
steel  to  the  will  and  purpose  of  our  countrymen,  knowing 
well  that  if  we  can  do  that,  if  public  opinion  can  be  crys- 
tallized and  made  virile,  it  will  find  a  way  to  express  itself 
through  one  of  the  constituted  parties,  or  it  will  create  a 
new  instrument  through  which  it  can  express  itself.  (Ap- 
plause.) 

Another  reason  given  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  and 
reiterated  by  the  former  President,  was  one  that  I  blush 
to  name ;  one  that  if  the  sovereignty  of  the  American 
people  had  ever  rested  for  a  single  hour  in  my  poor  per- 
sonality, I  would  have  suffered  my  right  arm  to  be  torn 

[70] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

from  its  socket  and  my  tongue  to  be  ripped  from  its  roots 
before  I  would  have  confessed  it.  What  is  this  reason? 
Hear  it,  and  if  you  be  men  with  red  blood  in  you,  you  will 
resent  it !  Here  it  is  :  It  would  be  a  futile  thing  to  submit 
and  adopt  an  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution  end- 
ing the  Hquor  traffic  in  America,  because  it  could  not  be 
enforced  if  adopted.  Think  of  it!  Think  of  it!  I  want 
it  to  soak  in.  Do  you  know  what  it  is?  It  is  a  con- 
fession from  the  lips  of  a  former  President  of  the  United 
States,  a  confession  that  constitutional,  representative  gov- 
ernment has  failed  in  this  RepubHc !  Think  of  it !  I  weigh 
my  words,  I  know  their  meaning.  I  am  not  given  to  loose- 
ness of  speech  either  in  public  or  in  private.  I  am  willing 
to  stand  for  any  utterances  I  make,  and  I  say  to  you  in  all 
candor,  that  the  statement  made  is  a  confession  from  the 
lips  of  a  former  President  of  the  United  States,  a  man  who, 
for  four  years,  had  vested  in  his  personality  the  sover- 
eignty of  this  Nation, — a  confession  that  constitutional 
representative  government  has  failed  in  this  RepubHc! 
And  if  you  will  hear  me  I  will  convince  you  that  it  is  all  I 
have  said  of  it. 

The  essence,  the  soul  of  American  liberty,  lies  in  the 
right  of  the  American  people  to  choose  for  themselves  poli- 
cies of  state  and  to  have  their  choice  effectuated  when 
made.  In  this  is  the  soul,  the  essence  of  American  liberty. 
Outside  of  it  there  is  only  despotism  or  anarchy.  If  an 
amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  made  in  the  or- 
derly, thoughtful,  deliberate,  slow  process  provided  by  that 
instrument  for  its  amendment;  if  an  amendment  repre- 
senting the  settled,  purposeful,  abiding  conviction  of  the 
American  people,  cannot  be  enforced  if  adopted,  then  we 
have  lost  our  right  to  choose  poHcics  of  government,  for 
what  boots  our  right  to  amend  the  charter  of  our  liberties 
if  we  are  powerless  to  enforce  the  amendment  when  made? 
And  that,  my  friends,  raises  an  issue  in  this  Nation  pro- 
lyl] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

founder  than  the  Hquor  question, — an  issue  as  profound 
and  deep  as  freedom  itself,  and  that  issue  is  raised  in  every 
township  made  dry,  it  is  raised  in  every  county,  it  is 
raised  in  every  State,  it  is  raised  in  every  city.  If  you 
doubt  it,  go  read  the  story  of  Terre  Haute.  That  issue  is 
a  challenge  to  the  American  people,  a  challenge  to  their 
right  to  govern  themselves  and  to  administer  their  own 
government.  The  right  to  govern  ourselves !  Have  you 
forgotten  what  that  right  cost?  If  you  have,  go  read  again 
the  luminous  story  of  the  resplendent  years  out  there !  Go 
number  again  the  dead  who  died  to  establish  that  right  in 
this  new  world.  Go  weigh  the  service ;  go  count  the  tears 
and  measure  the  shed  blood  out  of  which  that  right  sprung. 

That  thjy  might  establish  that  right  forever  on  this  side 
the  sea,  our  fathers  wrote  and  signed  the  indictment  of  a 
king,  when  to  write  and  sign  and  lose  meant  death  in 
hateful  form. 

To  establish  that  right  they  assembled  on  the  village 
green  at  Lexington  and  disputed  with  the  armed  soldiery 
of  an  English  king,  whether  this  new  world  should  con- 
tinue to  be  the  plaything  of  kings  and  emperors  and  czars, 
or  should  become  the  habitat  of  a  great,  free,  purposeful 
democracy. 

To  establish  that  right,  they  froze  at  Valley  Forge  and 
starved  at  Morristown.  Froze  and  starved,  but  would 
not  yield! 

To  establish  that  right  they  stained  with  blood  from 
frozen  feet  the  snow  of  the  Jerseys  in  their  retreat. 

To  establish  that  right  they  made  red  with  the  current 
of  their  lives  the  trenches  at  Yorktown  and  crimson  the 
forest  leaves  at  Saratoga. 

To  establish  that  right  they  ripped  half  a  continent  from 
the  body  of  the  British  Empire  and  brought  back  on  the 
bared  points  of  their  bloodwet  swords  their  country's 
independence! 

[72] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

To  establish  that  right  Washington  left  his  home  in  Vir- 
ginia ;  faced  for  seven  years  the  perils  of  war,  and  bared 
his  bosom  to  the  missiles  of  the  battlefield;  commanding  for 
seven  years  the  little  armies  of  the  new-born  Republic 
without  compensation,  and  in  the  end  putting  thirty-seven 
thousands  dollars  of  his  own  private  fortune  upon  the  altar. 

To  establish  that  right  he  carried  in  crucial  moments  in 
his  own  great  breast  and  unconquered  soul,  his  country's 
only  hope. 

To  establish  that  right  he  denied  a  throne  and  refused 
a  crown,  for  once,  when  doubt  rode  on  every  wind, 
and  every  passing  hour  was  big  with  uncertainty  and  fear, 
— once,  at  least, — Fate  put  within  the  reach  of  his  sure 
sword,  and  within  the  grasp  of  his  strong  hand, — Fate  put 
a  crown,  Fate  put  a  crown !  He  could  have  been  a  king ! 
He  could  have  been  a  king,  and  the  story  of  this  Republic 
never  would  have  been  written.  He  could  have  been  a  king, 
but  he  would  not,  he  would  not.  Where  Cromwell  stooped 
and  Caesar  fell,  Washington  stood  and  walked  erect ;  stood 
and  walked  erect.  (Applause.)  And  now  hear  me,  if  he 
could  do  that,  if  he  could  deny  a  throne  and  refuse  a  crown 
that  he  might  establish  in  this  new  world  the  right  of  this 
people  to  choose  for  themselves  policies  of  state  and  to 
have  their  choice  effectuated  when  made,  what  shall  be 
said  of  us,  in  this  glad  morning  of  this  triumphant  century, 
what  shall  be  said  of  us,  heirs  of  all  his  great  sword  wrought 
and  established,  inheritors  of  the  splendid  achievements  of 
the  luminous  years  out  there;  what  shall  be  said  of  us,  if, 
in  the  hour  of  our  plentitude  of  power,  we  abdicate  that 
right,  surrender  it  to  the  liquor  traffic,  and  confess  to  the 
world  that  we  have  reared  here,  under  the  flag  his  valor 
called  into  this  new  sky — reared  a  thing  greater  than  the  sov- 
ereignty he  won  and  bequeathed  to  us?  Men  and  women 
of  Indiana,  to  me  the  thought  is  impossible !     At  its  mere 

f73] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

suggestion  Washington's  uncompensated  sword  ought  to 
leap  again  from  its  scabbard  and  beat  and  flay  the  cowards 
who  suggest  it,  as  a  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  ago  it 
leaped  from  its  scabbard  at  Kipp's  Landing,  and  beat  and 
flayed  the  cowards  who  would  not  fight  to  establish  that 
right  in  this  new  world ! 

We  cannot  abdicate;  we  cannot  make  the  confession;  we 
cannot  surrender.  No !  No  !  We  will  accept  the  challenge ; 
accept  it  in  the  name  of  the  martyred  dead  who  died  to 
establish  that  right  here ;  accept  it  in  the  name  of  the  heroic 
living  who  mean  to  live  and  perpetuate  that  right  here  to 
the  latest  generation !  There  is  under  God,  or  beneath  the 
stars,  nothing  greater  than  the  expressed  sovereignty  of 
this  people.  Not  since  the  voice  of  Jehovah  thundered 
from  the  peaks  of  Sinai,  has  the  world  heard  so  potent  a 
voice  as  the  voice  of  my  country  when  expressed  in  orderly, 
constitutional  ways,  and  when  she  has  so  spoken,  there  is 
beneath  the  stars  no  interest,  however  great,  that  may 
dispute  her  sovereignty.    No !    This  land  is  ours,  my  friends, 

"It  is  ours  ;  all  ours  ! 
Ours  from  the  north  lakes'  crystal  waves, 
To  the  silvery  southern  foam ; 
Ours  by  the  changeless  right  of  graves ; 
Ours  by  the  lives  to  come ! 

It  is  ours  ;  all  ours  ! 

Ours  by  the  homes  that  deck  the  land, 

Ours  by  the  pathways  trod ; 

Ours  by  the  ages'  stern  demand, 

Ours  by  the  gift  of  God." 

And  being  ours,  we  are  resolved  that  we  will  administer 
its  government,  and  having  resolved  to  administer  its  gov- 
ernment, we  intend  to  weave  the  death-robe,  hew  the  death- 

[74] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

block,  and  lead  to  its  execution  anything  that  disputes  with 
us  that  right.     (Applause.) 

The  great  wrong  of  human  slavery  was  tolerated  until 
in  its  arrogance  and  power  it  began  to  dispute  with 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  right  of  this  people  to  govern  them- 
selves. But  when  it  did  that,  a  million  men  stepped  to 
Lincoln's  side  and  with  muskets  in  their  hands  shot  slavery 
to  death,  sending  it  to  the  sepulcher  of  the  centuries  to  keep 
company  with  the  dead  evils  of  other  times. 

And  now  the  liquor  traffic,  grown  powerful  and  arrogant, 
disputes  with  us  on  the  floor  of  the  Congress  at  Washing- 
ton ;  and  through  the  lips  of  a  former  President, — in  every 
State  and  in  every  city,  disputes  with  us — our  right  to  ad- 
minister the  government  of  our  fathers,  and,  like  our 
fathers,  we  mean  to  meet  it — meet  it,  not  with  bullets,  but 
with  ballots,  for  by  the  ballot  we  can  end  it — and  send  it 
into  the  sepulcher  of  the  centuries  to  keep  company  forever 
with  its  twin-sister  and  rehc  of  barbarism,  human  slavery. 
(Applause.) 

That  I  might  have  a  man's  part  in  preparing  the  heart 
of  my  countrymen  for  the  coming  of  the  great  issue,  I 
have  conceived,  with  my  associates,  this  great.  Nation- 
wide campaign,  a  campaign  that  includes  every  State  in 
the  Union,  every  State  capital,  the  National  Capital  at 
Washington,  every  great  educational  center  of  the  land — 
more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  American  cities.  More 
than  a  year  ago,  a  year  ago  last  November,  I  called  as  many 
of  these  men  and  women  as  I  could  reach, — these  men  and 
women  whom  you  have  heard  here  in  the  past  three  days, — 
to  meet  me  at  the  Neal  House  in  Columbus,  Ohio.  There  we 
met  in  an  upper  room,  a  room  which  had  been  once  occu- 
pied by  Lincoln,  and  there  we  knelt  around  a  common 
altar !  "What,"  you  say,  "An  altar  in  an  upper  room  in  a 
hotel !"  Yes,  my  brother,  please  God,  an  altar  anywhere 
where  a   contrite   soul   bows   in   supplication   to   the   Father. 

[75] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

And  there  in  that  upper  room  we  dreamed  and  planned  this 
great  campaign,  covering  every  State  in  the  Union,  stretch- 
ing over  a  period  of  nearly  nine  months,  requiring  the 
service  of  more  than  tw^enty  people,  and  costing  in  round 
numbers  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  dollars.  That 
was  the  thing  we  dreamed ;  and  we  knew  what  it  meant. 
We  knew  some  of  us  would  put  health  upon  its  altar — and 
mayhap  life  itself.  And  we  knew  what  it  would  cost  in 
money — two  hundred  thousand  dollars — and  we  knew  there 
was  not  a  penny  in  our  treasury,  or  a  dollar  in  sight.  Again 
I  hear  your  inquiry — an  inquiry  born  of  doubt :  "Did  you 
plan  and  start  upon  a  campaign  like  that  without 
money;  and  undertake  to  carry  that  many  people  for  that 
period  of  time,  day  and  night,  across  the  country,  without 
resources  or  financial  backing?" 

I  answer,  "Yes,  I  did !  I  did  just  that — did  it  over  the 
protest  of  my  friends,  over  the  protest  of  my  business  asso- 
ciates ;  did  it  when  men  said  it  could  not  be  done."  But  I 
had  something  better  than  money.  There  are  some  things 
in  this  old  world  worth  more  than  money.  What  did  I 
have?  I  had  faith  in  the  great  cause  we  w^ere  to  advocate. 
I  knew  that  somehow  God's  unchanging  purpose  was  en- 
folded within  it ;  that  the  destiny  of  the  land  I  loved  was 
wrapped  up  in  it.  I  had  faith  in  the  American  people — 
faith  in  you,  my  friends.  I  believed  in  you.  And  I  had 
faith  in  the  great,  glad,  triumphant  fact,  that  God,  our 
Father,  was  not  yet  bankrupt.  I  knew  we  were  poor ;  I 
knew  we  were  without  material  resources ;  but  I  knew  the 
riches  of  the  mines  were  His!  That  the  wealth  of  the  valleys 
and  the  prairies,  of  the  cities,  of  the  factories  and  the 
cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  were  His !  And  I  knew,  yes,  by  the 
blessed  memories  and  the  fulfilled  promises  of  two  thousand 
transcendant  years,  I  knew,  if  the  thing  we  purposed  was 
really  His  business,  we  could  depend  upon  Him  to  see  His 
business  through ! 

[76] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

And  so,  without  money,  and  without  financial  resources 
or  backing,  I  called  these  men  and  women  about  me,  put  my 
hand  in  my  Father's  hand,  and  started  upon  this  unparal- 
leled campaign.     Now,  after  more  than  seven  months  of 
travel,  covering  a  continental  trail  sixty-five  thousand  miles 
in  length;  after  having  held  more  than  thirteen  hundred 
pubHc  meetings  like  unto  this ;  after  having  delivered  more 
than   three   thousand   addresses;   after   having   filled   two 
hundred  and  ten  days  with  high  endeavor,  we  are  here, 
speaking  to  you  tonight.    The  past  is  secure.    We  are  con- 
tent with  it.    But  hear  me !    We  have  something  like  thirty 
days  yet  of  this  campaign,  days  that  will  take  us  into  great 
cities,  many  cities  where  it  will  cost  fifteen  hundred  to  two 
thousand  dollars  for  local  expenses  alone,  and  I  am  free 
to  confess  that  I  cannot  complete  this  campaign  with  the 
money  I  have  in  hand  unless  you  help  me,  and  help  me  more 
generously  than  you  have  yet  helped.    Now,  do  not  misun- 
derstand me.     These  meetings  are  as  free  to  you  as  the  air 
you  breathe.    Your  money  cannot  be  used  to  pay  the  ex- 
pense of  this  hall,  or  even  for  the  lighting  of  it.    All  that 
was  provided  for  by  funds  contributed  before  we  came  to 
Indiana.    We  were  not  invited  to  come  to  Indianapolis;  we 
came  without  invitation;   came  without  the  welcome   of 
some  people.     But  we  came  because  we  were  on  the  busi- 
ness of  our  King;  beHeved  we  had  a  message  from  the 
King  for  you, — a  message  which  we  have  tried  to  give  to 
you.     You   owe   no   member   of   the   Flying    Squadron   any- 
thing, you  are  under  no  obligations  to  me.     On  the  con- 
trary, I  am  under  many  to  you.     But  while  you  owe  me 
nothing,  and  these  men  and  women  nothing,  I  carry  on  my 
heart  and  in  my  soul  across  this   Continent,  the  world's 
greatest  cause,  your  country's  greatest  cause,  and  I  cannot 
carry  it  to  successful  fruition  without  your  help.     If  you 
love  the  cause,  if  you  believe  in  me,  if  you  believe  in  these 

men  and  women,  and  are  wiUing  to  make  us  your  ambassa- 

[77] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

dors  to  the  great  cities  of  the  East,  then  loose  your  purse- 
strings.  There  are  men  here  tonight  who  could  give  one 
hundred  dollars  to  this  cause  if  they  would.  We  had  one 
man  like  that  in  Muncie  the  other  night.  Surely  there  is  a 
man  in  Indianapolis  who,  for  love  of  this  cause,  will  put 
one  hundred  dollars  upon  this  altar.  There  ought  to  be 
women  here  who  could  put  fifty  dollars  upon  it.  In  Muncie 
there  were  two  of  them !  Others  could  give  twenty-five 
dollars,  many  others ;  still  others  could  give,  twenty  dollars, 
fifteen  dollars,  ten  dollars,  and  any  of  you  could  give  five 
dollars.  And  no  man  or  woman  ought  to  leave  this  hall 
until  he  puts  upon  this  altar  at  least  one  dollar  in  cash  or 
pledge.  Now,  I  know  what  some  of  you  are  saying.  Some 
of  you  are  saying,  "Why,  Governor,  I  gave  yesterday,"  or 
"I  gave  the  day  before,"  or  "I  gave  this  afternoon ;  surely 
you  do  not  mean  that  I  shall  give  again."  Yes,  I  do.  And 
hear  me !  We  gave  yesterday,  we  gave  the  day  before ;  we 
have  given  two  hundred  and  fifteen  days  and  nights,  and, 
God  helping  us,  we  will  give  tomorrow,  give  every  day. 
We  mean  to  bear  this  great  cause  on  the  wings  of  song 
and  prayer,  and  of  consecrated  high  endeavor,  so  near  the 
gates  of  the  Eternal  City,  that  God  will  smile  upon  it  in  rec- 
ognition and  crown  it  with  victory !  I  know  this  will  take 
sacrifice,  but  hear  me,  there  is  no  atonement  for  human 
sin  save  in  sacrifice.  Had  the  great  Nazarene  never  walked 
beneath  the  olive  trees ;  had  He  never  wept  and  knelt  in 
Gethsemane ;  had  His  great  heart  never  been  broken  by  the 
weight  of  the  world's  woe ;  had  He  never  hung  in  the  agony 
of  crucifixion  on  Calvary's  cross-crowned  crest ;  had  a  God 
not  been  crucified,  there  would  have  been  no  atonement 
for  your  sins  and  mine.  Through  His  death  we  live. 
Through  His  sacrifice  we  find  salvation. 

For   two   hundred   years,    Colonies    and    Nation,    we    have 
sinned  in  the  protection  we  have  given  this  traffic.     Shall 

[78] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

we  now  refuse  to  make  the  sacrifice  necessary  to  drive  it 
out?    Let  us  put  our  answer  upon  this  altar  here  tonight. 

I  cannot  close  without  expressing  my  grateful  apprecia- 
tion of  the  interest  you  have  shown  in  this  great  series  of 
meetings;  it  means  that  we  are  at  death-grips  with  this 
question,  and  I  am  grateful  for  it  all. 

And  now  I  want  to  present  to  you  Mr.  Oliver  Wayne 
Stewart,  of  Chicago.  God  bless  him!  I  wish  you  knew 
him  as  I  do, — knew  him  for  what  he  is  worth.  There  came 
a  time  in  this  campaign  when  my  body  broke,  when  I  could 
not  whip  it  into  action,  when  I  fell  of  sheer  physical  exhaus- 
tion, in  the  presence  of  the  people  as  I  tried  to  speak  to 
them,  and  it  was  Oliver  Wayne  Stewart  who  gathered  me 
in  arms  as  tender  as  woman's,  and  cared  for  me,  doing 
my  work  and  his,  until  I  was  able  to  take  the  field  again. 
May  God  bless  his  message  to  you  tonight ! 


[79] 


MORAL  YEARNINGS  AND  RURAL  COMMUNITIES. 

From  an  address  delivered  at  the  Chautauqua  Assembly  at 
Champaign,  111.,  August  20,  1906,  in  answer  to  an  address  of  Mr. 
Jerome,  in  which  he  insisted  upon  two  codes  of  laws  touching 
public  morals,  one  strict  enough  to  satisfy  the  moral  yearnmgs 
of  rural  communities,  and  the  other  liberal  enough  to  satisfy  the 
desire  for  license  on  the  part  of  city  populations. 

IF  the  object  of  District  Attorney  Jerome  was  notoriety 
only,  his  western  speech-making  tour  was  a  success. 
That  he  obtained,  wide-spread  and  abundant.  But  if 
his  purpose  was  to  teach,  to  instruct,  or  to  serve  the  peo- 
ple, his  trip  was  a  failure.  His  ideals  were  too  low  and  his 
teachings  too  impracticable,  too  unwise  and  too  dangerous 
to  be  helpful.  His  message  was  well  calculated  to  do  harm. 
Fortunately  the  time  was  inopportune  for  the  preaching  of 
his  doctrine,  and  the  harm  he  did  was  therefore  minimized. 
The  Middle  West  is  in  the  midst  of  a  great  moral  and 
civic  revival  which  is  touching  and  stirring  the  public  con- 
science as  it  has  rarely  been  touched  or  stirred  before. 
The  people,— now  as  always,  the  well  and  source  of 
power, — are  coming  more  and  more  to  see  and  understand 
that  honest  administration  of  pubHc  affairs,  enforcement 
of  the  laws  which  they  themselves  have  enacted,  and 
simple,  straight-forward  ways,  are  essential  to  their  peace, 
prosperity  and  their  happiness.  They  have  rediscovered,  as 
it  were,  the  fact  that  obedience  to  the  law  is  the  first  duty 
of  every  citizen  and  the  foundation  of  the  liberty  they  have 
inherited,  and  that  clean  habits,  moral  fiber  and  sturdiness 
of  purpose  are  essential  elements  in  the  character  and  Hfe 
of  every  man  to  whom  the  administration  of  public  affairs 
is  confined. 

Something  of  what  Mr.  Jerome  was  pleased  to  call  "the 
moral  yearnings  of  rural  communities"  has  taken  hold  of 
men  and  women  throughout  the  great  States  of  the  Miss- 
issippi Valley,  whether  their  abode  be  in  the  country  or 

[811 


Speeches  of  The  Flyjng  Squadron 

in  the  city.  And  that  something,  whatever  it  is  and  wher- 
ever it  appears,  is  both  wholesome  and  beneficial.  It 
strengthens,  upHfts  and  ennobles  whomever  it  touches,  in 
whatever  grade  of  society  he  belongs.  It  is  beginning  to 
give  direction  to  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  many  people. 

In  truth,  "rural  life  and  its  moral  yearnings"  contributes 
so  much  each  day  to  the  welfare  of  the  country  in  the 
way  of  increase  of  property  and  of  wealth,  of  stamina  of 
character,  of  health,  of  physical,  moral  and  mental  vigor, 
and  of  individual  happiness  that  it  cannot  be  made  the 
subject  of  a  successful  sneer  even  by  Mr.  Jerome. 

It  contains  the  salt  that  saves  the  leaven  of  American 
citizenship.  It  is  the  ballast  that  keeps  the  ship  of  State 
righted  and  afloat.  It  is  the  "rock  in  a  weary  land."  It  is 
the  buttress  and  the  sure  defense  of  the  institutions 
founded  by  the  fathers. 

Life  in  rural  communities, — country,  village  or  town, — 
IS,  as  a  rule,  sane  and  natural.  Temptations  are  fewer  and 
less  potent  than  in  the  city.  Field,  river,  hill  and  valley; 
free  air  and  unobstructed  space;  the  phenomena  of  sunrise 
and  sunset;  the  associations  of  the  day,  with  its  arch  of 
blue;  with  its  shadow  and  its  sunshine  and  the  majesty 
of  its  cloud  and  storm;  the  solitudes  of  the  night,  with  its 
\  lulted  sky,  sprinkled  and  jeweled  with  distant  worlds  and 
stars  afar;  the  mysteries  of  life  as  exemplified  in  bird  and 
beast  and  flower  and  leaf  and  tree,  and  the  appeals  of 
nature  everywhere,— all  combine  to  teach  simplicity  of 
life,  to  develop  character,  to  beget  reverence  for  Him  who 
made  the  universe  and  called  forth  the  worlds  that  are  in 
it,  and  are  conducive  to  the  develop;-^ .  nt  of  physical, 
mental  and  moral  fiber.  Somehow  Gou  is  nearer  in  the 
country  than  in  the  city.  His  nearness  makes  it  easy  for 
men  to  hear  and  obey.  The  men  and  women  who  are  born 
and  reared  amid  such  environment  are  wont  to  have  moral 
yearnings  and  it  is  well  for  the  city  that  they  are.    There 

[82] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

is  not  a  city  in  the  land  which  does  not  owe  more  than  it 
can  ever  pay  to  the  men  and  women  who  come  to  it  from 
the  country.  These  men  and  women  come  possessed  of 
moral  yearnings,  of  desire  to  serve,  and  with  courage  to 
achieve.  They  replenish  daily  the  city's  depleted  stream  of 
life.  They  restore  the  wasted  energies  of  its  population, 
give  strength,  virility  and  moral  fiber  to  its  citizenship, 
and  save  it  from  the  ruin  of  its  misrule,  its  sins  and  its 
dissipations.  But  for  them  its  business,  professional  and 
social  life,  would  deteriorate  and  die  of  its  own  impoverish- 
ment. The  problem  of  the  age  in  this  country  is  not  the 
government  of  rural  communities,  but  the  government  of 
the  cities.  The  purchasable  electorate,  than  which  there 
is  no  greater  peril  to  free  institutions,  is  not  found  in  the 
rural  communities,  but  it  is  found,  in  the  main,  in  the  shift- 
less, idle  and  criminal  population  of  the  cities.  The  "wider- 
open"  the  city  is,  the  greater  are  the  shiftless,  idle  and 
criminal  classes ;  and  the  greater  this  population  is,  the 
greater  is  the  peril  to  free  institutions. 

And  yet  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Jerome  that  there  ought  to 
be  two  codes  of  laws  touching  public  morals,  one  code 
strict  enough  to  satisfy  the  moral  yearnings  of  rural  com- 
munities, and  another  liberal  enough  to  satisfy  the  desire 
for  license  on  the  part  of  city  populations.  I  cannot  agree 
with  him.  If  restraints  upon  the  freedom  of  individual 
action  are  needed  in  one  place  more  than  in  another,  it  is 
in  the  cities  and  not  in  the  country.  Where  men  congregate 
or  dwell  in  great  numbers,  as  in  the  cities,  individual  will 
and  choice  must  of  necessity  be  restricted  in  many  ways 
for  the  good  of  the  population  as  a  collective  body.  Speed 
of  railway  trains,  of  electric  cars,  of  motors  and  of  vehicles 
of  every  kind  must  be  limited  without  regard  to  the  will 
of  those  who  operate  them,  in  order  that  the  limbs  and 
lives  of  the  many  may  be  preserved.  Matters  relating  to 
sanitation   make   other   limitations   upon   the   will   of   the 

[83] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

individual  essential  for  the  protection  of  the  whole.  Fire 
limits  must  be  established  within  which  the  individual  may 
not  build  of  combustible  material  lest  the  property  of  all 
be  imperiled.  The  right  to  store  explosives  cannot  be  left 
to  individual  caprice  because  of  the  jeopardy  that  would 
attach  to  the  lives  of  all.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the 
many  instances  in  which  individual  will  and  freedom  of 
action  find  Hmitations  necessarily  fixed  by  the  law, — 
limitations,  the  necessity  of  which  arises  from  and  is 
incident  to  increased  and  multiplied  populations. 

In  the  cities  limitations  upon  individual  choice  touching 
matters  which  relate  to  public  morals  are  as  essential  as 
in  the  matters  just  named.  Where  population  is  congested 
and  includes  every  grade  and  stratum  of  society  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest,  temptation  is  multipHed  many  times, 
and  the  necessity  of  restraining  the  individual  will  becomes 
imperative  lest  the  moral  life  of  the  whole  city  be  con- 
taminated. The  enforcement  of  restrictions  along  lines 
touching  public  morals  is  more  difficult  in  the  cities  than 
in  rural  communities.  Men  become  careless  and  indifferent 
to  abuses  and  excesses — abuses  and  excesses,  too,  which 
are  as  fatal  to  the  peace  and  welfare  of  the  community  as 
a  pestilence.    Pope  understood  this  when  he  wrote : 

"Vice  is  a  monster  of  so  frightful  mien, 
As  to  be  hated  needs  but  to  be  seen ; 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  embrace." 

But  the  necessity  of  the  enforcement  of  such  restrictions, 
however,  is  none  the  less  imperative  because  of  the  increased 
difficulty  attending  their  enforcement.  In  every  great  city 
there  are  men  who  make  it  their  business  to  make  money 
out  of  immoral  practices,  and  who,  for  sordid  reasons 
alone,  desire  either  such  an  interpretation  of  existing  laws 

[84] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

or  such  laxity  of  their  administration  and  enforcement  as 
will  leave  them  free  and  untrammeled  to  pursue  their 
unholy  calHngs.  I  do  not  believe  or  charge  that  Mr.  Jerome 
is  knowingly  the  representative  of  these  men,  but  I  do 
believe  and  say  that  every  one  of  them  is  a  behever  m  the 
doctrine  he  preaches,  and  that  every  one  of  them  applauded 
his  utterance  when  he  declared  for  two  codes  of  laws 
relating  to  public  morals,— one  for  the  country  and  one 
for  the  city;  one  made  to  satisfy  the  moral  longings  of 
rural  communities  and  another  to  meet  the  desire  for 
license  of  the  so-called  liberal  element  of  the  great  cities. 

The  doctrine  embodied  in  his  statement  is  a  dangerous 
and  pernicious  doctrine.  That  immoral  practices  are  more 
dangerous  in  city  than  in  country  is  a  truth  too  self-evident 
to  need  argument.  They  reach  and  contaminate  more  peo- 
ple. Their  evil  influences  afifect  the  weakest  spot  in  our 
body  poHtic,  and  their  attack  is  directed  against  the  most 
vulnerable  point  in  the  fabric  of  American  government. 

The  "thou  shalt  nots"  of  the  law  are  even  more  essential 
in  the  cities  than  in  rural  communities,  and  they  must 
continue  to  apply  to  them  with  at  least  equal  force  and 
vigor.  Sin  is  sin  wherever  committed.  Dissipation  is 
dissipation;  debauchery  is  debauchery;  gambling  is  gam- 
bling; adultery  is  adultery;  embezzlement  is  embezzle- 
ment; bribery  is  bribery;  theft  is  theft;  arson  is  arson, 
and  murder  is  murder,  whether  committed  in  the  city  or 
in  the  country.  The  condemnation  of  the  law  must  con- 
tinue to  be  upon  them  every  one  and  everywhere,  and  its 
hand  must  continue  to  fall  with  impartial  vigor  upon  every 
one  who  commits  any  of  them,  wherever  he  resides  and 
whatever  may  be  his  environment. 


[85] 


PARTIES  TO  THE  ISSUE. 

From    a    Chautauqua    Address    delivered    at    Fountain    Park 
Assembly,  Remington,  Indiana,  August  16,  1905. 

THERE  are  those  who  seek  to  make  the  question  of 
obedience  to  the  law  a  personal  issue  between  them- 
selves and  the  man  who  happens  for  the  moment 
to  be  the  Chief  Executive  of  the  State.  In  this  they  are 
in  error.  There  is,  there  can  be,  no  personal  issue  between 
us.  The  issue  exists,  that  I  admit ;  but  it  is  not  between 
them  and  me.  It  is  between  them  and  a  far  greater  and 
a  more  enduring  power  than  I.  It  is  between  them  and 
the  law  itself.  The  challenge  to  them  to  surrender,  or  the 
command  to  obey  the  law  does  not  come  from  me,  but 
from  the  law ;  and  they  will  continue  to  come  with  increas- 
ing frequency  and  growing  insistence  years  after  I  have 
gone.  I  will  soon  cease  to  have  to  do  with  public  afltairs. 
I  will  soon  pass  entirely  from  the  stage  of  action  and 
thus  be  forever  eliminated  from  the  problem,  but  the  law 
will  survive,  and  the  issue  will  remain.  It  will  continue 
to  abide  and  to  endure  until  the  great  public,  stirred  by 
the  prickings  of  an  awakened  conscience,  shall  rally  to 
the  law's  support  and  give  it  victory.  The  result  of  the 
battle  lies  not  with  one  man,  nor  with  one  administration, 
but  in  the  decision  to  be  formed  in  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  a  people,  who,  for  more  than  a  century,  have 
found  the  law  a  safe  and  an  abiding  house  of  refuge,  and 
who  believe  in  its  sovereignty,  in  its  sanctity  and  in  its 
majesty.  Aye!  more  than  this.  The  issue  is  wrapped  m 
the  evolution  of  the  race  itself,  and  it  will  continue  to 
unfold,  for  it  is  a  part  of  the  unerring,  changeless  purpose 
of  the  Infinite,  until  the  process  of  the  suns  shall  have 
ceased  and  time  shall  be  no  more. 

[87] 


OUR  CLIMACTERIC  OPPORTUNITY. 

HUMAN  history  is  more  than  a  series  of  accidents. 
Through  the  ages  one  increasing  purpose  runs.  God 
is,  and  reigns.  Something  there  is  in  man  immortal 
and  divine,  lifting  him,  and  ever  lifting  him  into  endeavor  and 
achievement.  The  history  of  the  race  is  the  story  of  an  ever 
upward  climb.  The  sepulcher  of  the  centuries  is  filled  with 
the  whitening  bones  of  dead  evils  slain  by  man  in  his  climb 
toward  God.  Human  history  may  run  for  decades  on  the 
dead  level  of  the  commonplace,  then  suddenly,  as  blooms  the 
century  plant  in  a  night,  God's  unchanging  purpose  bursts 
full-blossomed  on  the  thorny  stem  of  Time.  A  great  oc- 
casion and  a  great  man  meet.  The  result :  A  climax  of 
destiny,  a  mountain-peak  of  human  achievement. 

To  every  generation  there  comes  one  opportunity  for 
race-wide  service,  and  happy  is  the  generation  that  has  a 
man  to  lead  it  to  the  fulfillment  of  that  opportunity. 

No  generation  ever  solves  more  than  one  great  racial 
problem.  It  is  as  though  in  the  sublime  endeavor  to  meet 
one  great  occasion  the  race  exhausts  itself  for  that  gen- 
eration, and  finds  itself  unable  to  solve  or  grasp  another 
great  racial  issue. 

One  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years  ago  there  came  to  our 
fathers  such  an  opportunity.  It  came  to  them  to  decide,  let  us 
hope  once  for  all,  whether  this  new  world  should  continue  to 
be  the  plaything  of  kings  and  emperors  and  czars,  or  was  to 
become  the  habitat  of  a  great,  free,  powerful  democracy. 
They  met  their  opportunity.  A  great  occasion  and  a  great 
man  met.  The  result :  A  new  Nation,  founded  in  virgin 
soil,  dedicated  to  human  liberty.  No  man  has  for  the  men 
who  wrought  that  tremendous  thing  a  profounder  respect 
or  a  deeper  or  higher  admiration  than  I  hold.  They  were 
children  of  a  mighty  time.     They  builded  broad  and  deep. 

[89] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

They  made  the  race  their  debtor.  And  yet,  in  the  moment 
of  their  great  achievement,  they  fell. 

Declaring  man's  equality  before  the  law,  they  framed  a 
pact  of  government  providing  for  the  inequality  of  men 
before  the  law — the  inequality  of  slave  and  master. 

Proclaiming  man's  inherent  right  to  life  and  liberty,  they 
framed  a  pact  of  government  denying  both  to  an  entire 
race. 

Insisting  before  the  world  that  all  governments  derive 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  they 
framed  a  pact  of  government  depriving  a  whole  people  of 
all  right  of  participation  therein. 

Strong  enough  to  conceive  liberty  as  the  birthright  of 
all,  they  were  not  potent  enough  to  give  virility  to  their 
conception.  They  were  great  enough  to  establish  freedom 
for  themselves,  but  they  were  too  weak  to  extend  it  to 
the  bondman. 

When  they  failed  to  do  that,  and  gave  constitutional 
recognition  to  the  right  of  one  man  to  own  the  flesh  and 
blood  of  another,  they  sowed  the  wind,  and  their  children 
lived  to  reap  the  whirlwind.  Lived  to  reap  it?  Aye,  lived 
to  reap  it  in  four  long,  suffering  years  of  civil  war! 

Lived  to  reap  it  in  sixteen  thousand  tnilHons  of  money 
expended  and  property  destroyed ; 

Lived  to  reap  it  in  five  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  new- 
made  graves ; 

Lived  to  reap  it  in  the  red  hours  at  Chancellorsville ;  in 
the  carnage  at  Antietam;  in  the  sacrificial  baptism  at 
Fredericksburg ;  in  the  crimson  woods   at  Chickamauga ; 

Lived  to  reap  it  in  the  three  red  days  at  Gettysburg,  in 
the  wheatfield  and  among  the  trembling  hills ;  at  Spottsyl- 
vania  and  at  Cold  Harbor; 

Lived  to  reap  it  in  Lovejoy  mobbed,  in  John  Brown 
crucified,  in  Ellsworth  slain,  in  the  martyrdom  of  Abraham 

[90] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Lincoln,  the  sweetest,  gentlest,  tenderest  character  the 
world  has  known  since  the  Christ  returned  to  glory ! 

But  in  the  hour  of  the  whirlwind's  red  reaping  God's 
unchanging  purpose  flowered  again.  A  great  man  and  a 
great  occasion  met.  The  result :  The  transformation  of  the 
Great  Declaration  from  a  prophecy  unfulfilled  to  a  living, 
pulsing  fact;  a  Nation  sown  in  weaknes,  raised  in  power; 
the  preservation  of  the  Union,  the  death  of  slavery,  Free- 
dom enthroned.  I  hold  reverential  regard  for  the  great 
soul  who  led  them,  and  for  those  who  followed  in  that  stu- 
pendous achievement.  But  as  fell  the  fathers  in  the  hour 
of  their  triumph,  so  fell  the  men  of  the  generation  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  in  the  moment  of  their  sublime  achievement. 
That  they  might  obtain  revenue  with  which  to  prosecute 
the  war,  to  maintain  armies,  and  save  the  life  of  the  Nation, 
they  entered  into  a  compact  with  hell,  solemnized  a  part- 
nership between  the  Federal  Government  and  a  racial  evil 
greater  far  than  the  one  they  warred  against.  They  gave 
Federal  legislative  recognition  to  the  liquor  traffic,  put 
about  it  the  protection  and  sanctity  of  the  law,  and  gave 
it  the  badge  of  respectability,  and  when  they  did  it,  they, 
too,  sowed  the  wind,  and  we,  their  children,  are  living  to 
reap  the  whirlwind; 

Reaping  it  in  four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  and 
women  convicted  of  crime  in  this  Nation  every  year,  three 
hundred  thousand  of  whom  are  victims  of  this  traffic; 

Reaping  it  in  four  hundred  thousand  insane  men  and 
women — men  and  women  bereft  of  reason,  one  hundred 
thousand  of  whom  are  victims  of  this  traffic; 

Reaping  it  in  fifty  thousand  little  children  who  fall  in 
this  Nation  every  year,  sixty-seven  per  cent,  of  whom  are 
the  victims  of  this  traffic; 

Reaping  it  in  national  decay,  in  moral  degeneracy; 

Reaping  it  in  man-failure,  in  woman-failure,  and  man- 
failure  and  woman-failure  in  this  Nation  mean  institutional 

[91] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

failure — failure  of  institutions  for  which  men  have  died 
at  the  battle's  front,  sad  only  that  they  had  but  one 
life  to  give.  There  are  those  who  pray  for  more  men  in 
this  country.  I  utter  a  better  prayer  than  that.  I  pray  not 
for  more  men  in  my  country,  but  for  more  man  in  the 
men  who  are  in  my  country.  But  we  will  get  no  more 
man  in  the  men  who  are  in  the  country  until  the  country 
rids  itself  of  this  hateful  thing  that  debauches  daily  the 
man  in  the  men  of  the  country. 

Reaping  it  in  the  domination  of  this  traffic  over  the  affairs 
and  the  life  of  the  great  cities  of  the  Nation.  There  is  not  a 
great  city  in  America  where  government  is  not  near  the  dis- 
solving point  this  hour.  In  the  city  of  Chicago  the  United 
Societies,  backed  by  the  organized  liquor  traffic,  commercial- 
ized vice  and  capitalized  sin,  dominate  political  action,  write 
party  platforms,  name  party  candidates  and  make  cowards  of 
public  men !  In  the  city  of  New  York,  gun-men,  in  broad 
day,  shoot  down  citizens  on  the  public  thoroughfares  under 
guarantee  of  protection  at  the  hands  of  the  police  depart- 
ment of  the  city  itself!  Government  near  the  dissolving 
point  in  every  great  city  of  America ! 

The  rum  traffic  is  bent  upon  administering  all  govern- 
ment, local.  State  and  National,  and  every  department  of 
government,  legislative,  executive  and  judicial.  Its  unholy 
hands  are  upon  everything.  If  you  want  an  example — a 
bill  of  particulars — it  can  be  quickly  furnished.  The  City  of 
Terre  Haute  is  nearby.  The  scenes  enacted  there  within 
the  year  ought  to  be  still  fresh  in  your  memories.  I  put 
it  to  you :  Is  not  government  near  the  dissolving  point 
over  there,  with  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  the  Comptroller  of 
the  city,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Police  Department,  the 
Judge  of  the  PoHce  Court,  the  Sheriff  of  the  County,  and 
the  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  all  out  of  the  city,  serving 
prison  sentences  for  malfeasance  in  office,  or  the  violation 
of  statutes  enacted  to  protect  the  purity  of  elections  and 

[92] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  civic  life  of  the  community  whose  commissions  they 
held?  And  back  of  these  wrongs  and  crimes — wrongs  and 
crimes  that  have  disrupted  the  government  of  a  whole  city 
and  an  entire  county,  and  shamed  a  State — is  this  God- 
opposed,  hell-marching  traffic.  Its  responsibility  for  it  all 
has  been  fixed  by  words  other  than  my  own — fixed  by  judi- 
cial decision,  hot  from  the  lips  of  the  outraged  Court  before 
whom  these  unfortunate  defendants  were  tried.  With  one 
hundred  and  eighteen  of  them  arraigned  before  him  for 
sentence  upon  conviction  duly  had  or  confession  of  guilt 
openly  and  voluntarily  made,  the  fearless,  purposeful,  but 
just  Judge  of  the  Court  in  which  they  stood,  fixed  for  all 
time  Rum's  deep  share  in  the  crimes  they  had  committed, 
when  in  the  course  of  the  judgment  he  there  pronounced, 
he  said : 

"The  evidence  in  this  case  shows  that  this  con- 
spiracy had  its  inception  in  the  saloons  of  Terre 
Haute.  It  was  directed  from  them,  and  consum- 
mated through  them.  I  have  the  notion  that  the 
saloon  will  have  to  go.  The  American  people  will 
not  tolerate  it.  They  will  rise  in  their  might  and 
destroy  it." 

You  heard  these  words  when  they  were  uttered.  But  I 
have  repeated  them  that  they  may  find  an  abiding  place  in 
your  memories  and  become  unforgettable.  I  was  in  the 
City  of  Denver  when  I  read  them,  and  I  immediately  tele- 
graphed the  Judge,  congratulating  him : 

"You  are  right.  Saloons  will  have  to  go.  I  have 
been  trying  for  ten  years  to  do  a  man's  full  share 
toward  hastening  their  departure.  What  you  say 
from  the  bench  in  the  Roberts  trial,  I  saw  from  the 
Governor's  office  for  four  years.    Your  words  yes- 

[93] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

terday  were  potent  and  will  be  powerful  and  far- 
reaching  in  their  influence.  I  congratulate  you 
and  welcome  you  to  the  ranks  of  those  who  be- 
lieve the  traffic  will  have  to  go." 

The  great  design  upon  which  our  fathers  wrought,  and 
which  fell  unfinished  from  their  great  hands,  ennobled  by 
their  high  endeavor  and  consecrated  by  their  blood ; 

The  great  design  caught  and  wrought  upon  by  the  great, 
gaunt  hands  of  Lincoln,  and  those  who  followed  him — 
wrought  upon  by  them  in  sacrificial,  crowned  achievement, 
until  the  hope  of  men  and  the  will  of  God,  fused  into  a  unity 
of  purpose,  gave  it  the  luster  and  the  glory  of  the  stars ; 

That  great  design  thus  wrought  upon,  but  yet  unfinished, 
rests  now  in  our  hands ;  and  in  the  chalice  of  heaven's  un- 
changing purpose  a  new  great  occasion  is  forming;  a  mo- 
ment, and  it  will  tremble  into  bloom.  Opportunity — the 
opportunity  that  comes  but  once  to  any  generation — is 
ours ;  ours  this  holy  hour.  And  as  this  new  great  occasion, 
typifying  the  will  and  purpose  of  the  Father  of  Nations  and 
of  peoples,  bursts  full-blossomed  upon  our  vision,  may 
God  Almighty  grant  that  we  find  the  man  to  meet  it ;  and 
if  we  do,  out  of  the  meeting  will  come  another  star-loved 
peak  of  human  endeavor  and  achievement. 

That  we  might  have  a  part  in  preparing  the  heart  of 
our  countrymen  to  meet  this  great  occasion  we  have 
planned  and  are  carrying  to  successful  consummation  this 
monumental  campaign  of  ours ;  and  my  heart  thrills  with 
joy  this  afternoon — not  with  pride;  for,  before  God,  I  have 
thrown  that  out  of  my  heart  and  out  of  my  life — my  heart 
thrills  with  joy  that  you  have  responded  so  generously  to 
our  endeavor  here  in  the  city  in  which  I  live  and  have  my 
home.  May  the  generous  contribution  you  have  made  to 
this  great  cause  here  this  day  be  a  covenant — a  covenant 
between  us  and  the  Father — that  we  will  see  the  great 

[94] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

occasion  through;  see  it  through  in  Indiana;  see  it  through 
in  this  Republic! 


BENEDICTION. 
By  Rev.  U.  E.  Harding. 

We  thank  Thee,  our  Heavenly  Father,  for  this  visit  of 
the  Flying  Squadron.  We  praise  Thee  for  these  meetings 
of  the  last  three  days,  and  we  pray  that  Thy  divine  bless- 
ing and  benediction  shall  be  upon  its  members.  Keep  the 
train  on  the  track,  bring  it  in  on  time,  may  they  fill  every 
date,  and  may  the  blessing  of  God  be  upon  them  and  upon 
us.  We  pray  Thy  blessing  upon  our  own  State.  May  the 
day  speedily  come  when  we  shall  see  the  prayers  of  our 
fathers  and  our  mothers  answered  in  this  country — when 
the  Nation  shall  be  dry.  We  ask  these  favors  in  Jesus* 
name.  And  now  may  the  benediction  of  the  Father,  Son 
and  Holy  Ghost  be  upon  us  all,  now  and  evermore.    Amen. 


[95] 


OLIVER  W.  STEWART 


BORN  in  Mercer  County,  Illinois,  May  22,  1867,  Mr. 
Stewart's  boyhood  days  were  spent  on  the  farm.  He 
was  graduated  from  Woodhull,  Illinois,  high  school  in 
1885,  and  taught  school  for  two  years.  He  was  made 
Secretary  and  Organizer  for  the  District  Lodge  of  Good 
Templars,  doing  his  first  public  work  for  Temperance  and 
Prohibition  that  year. 

He  entered  Eureka  College  in  1887,  working  his  way 
through  school.  Following  his  graduation  and  marriage 
in  1890,  three  years  were  given  to  evangelistic  work.  He 
was  Secretary  of  the  Illinois  Christian  Endeavor  Union 
for  two  years,  and  President  of  that  organization  for  two 
years.  During  this  time  he  was  pastor  of  the  Disciples' 
Church  at  Mackinaw,  lUinois. 

In  1896  Mr.  Stewart  was  elected  Chairman  of  the  Illinois 
State  Prohibition  Committee  and  presided  over  the  Illinois 
Prohibition  Convention  that  year,  and  in  1900  was  made 
Chairman  of  the  Prohibition  National  Committee,  serving 
five  years. 

Elected  to  the  Illinois  Legislature  in  1902,  on  the  Prohi- 
bition ticket,  he  carried  his  ideals  with  him  into  that  legis- 
lative body,  and  though  the  only  Prohibitionist  in  the  House, 
was  instrumental  in  the  passage  of  many  bills  in  which  the 
people  of  Chicago  and  the  State  were  interested. 

Since  serving  in  the  Ilhnois  Legislature  and  as  National 
Chairman,  Mr.  Stewart  has  been  in  demand  in  reform  work, 
and  upon  chautauqua  and  lecture  platforms.  His  intense 
personality  and  overwhelming  enthusiasm,  supplemented 
by  his  irresistible  and  convincing  logic,  have  made  him  a 
powerful  and  popular  figure  in  the  public  life  of  the 
country. 

A  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  from  the  begin- 
ning, he  was  the  most  powerful  assistant  Governor  Hanly 
had  in  the  planning  and  the  management  of  the  Flying 
Squadron  campaign. 

[99] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

In  connection  with  the  Governor,  and  with  Mr.  William 
M.  Conrad,  of  Washington,  D.  C,  Mr.  Stewart  is  devoting 
his  great  talents  to  the  founding  of  the  "National  Enquirer" 
and  the  "Flying  Squadron  Foundation,"  but  giving,  mean- 
while, much  time  to  the  platform  in  behalf  of  the  cause  to 
which  he  has  dedicated  his  life. 


[100] 


THE  CASE  AGAINST  THE  SALOON. 

THERE  arc  two  phases  of  the  fight  against  the  liquor 
traffic  which  it  is  my  purpose  to  emphasize  at  the 
outset.  There  are  two  counts  in  the  indictment 
against  the  saloon,  upon  either  of  which  it  must  stand  con- 
demned, because  upon  neither  is  it  able  to  offer  an  adequate 
defense. 

The  first  of  these  is  economic.  Those  who  speak  upon 
the  question,  are  compelled  constantly  to  reiterate  the  ar- 
guments against  the  saloon  as  an  industrial  menace  on 
account  of  the  fact  that  the  liquor  traffic  seeks  to  defend 
itself  as  an  economic  blessing. 

The  saloon  will  plead  guilty  to  almost  any  charge  made 
against  it  on  ethical  or  moral  grounds  and  then,  having  so 
plead,  will  justify  itself  with  the  claim  it  is  a  benefit  to 
business.  Since  it  makes  that  claim,  we  are  compelled  to 
meet  it. 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  the  saloon  selects  that  ground  for 
its  defense.  There  are  certain  facts  which  unconsidered 
appear  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  saloon.  For  example :  It  is 
obvious  that  saloons  employ  bar-keepers.  Nobody  has 
ever  disputed  that.  No  one  ever  thought  of  doing  so.  It 
is  equally  plain  that  distilleries  and  breweries  furnish  em- 
ployment to  workmen.  No  one  ever  denied  that.  No  one 
has  had  occasion  to.  But  our  liquor  friends  seize  upon 
these  undenied  facts  and  make  the  claim  that  since  saloons 
employ  bar-keepers,  and  since  breweries  and  distilleries 
employ  workmen,  we  must  admit  our  fight  for  nation-wide 
prohibition  to  be  ill-considered  and  ill-advised.  Of  course, 
we  are  not  required  to  admit  anything  of  the  kind.  It  does 
not  follow  that,  because  a  saloon  employs  a  bar-keeper  to 
do  a  bad  thing,  therefore,  the  saloon  itself  is  a  good  thing, 
nor  does  it  follow  because  a  distillery  or  brewery  furnishes 
employment  to  men  to  do  something  harmful  to  society 

noil 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that,  therefore,  the  distillery  and  brewery  are  a  benefit  to 
society.  Exactly  the  opposite  would  follow,  but  relying 
upon  us  not  to  see  the  fallacy,  the  saloon  presses  home  its 
seeming  advantage  on  the  industrial  side  of  the  case. 

Our  pro-Hquor  friends  would  be  decidedly  impatient  with 
us  if  we  made  the  same  argument  in  favor  of  bank  bur- 
glary that  they  make  on  behalf  of  the  saloon.  Yet  it  could 
be  done.  We  could  insist  that  bank  burglars  are  a  benefit 
industrially  because  directly  and  indirectly  they  furnish 
employment  to  men. 

When  a  bank  burglar  breaks  into  a  bank  building  he  has 
to  use  a  jimmy  to  get  the  window  up  or  get  the  door  open. 
Somebody  had  to  make  the  jimmy.  We  regret  the  use  the 
burglar  makes  of  the  tool,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  demand  for  it  resulted  in  employment  for  the  man  who 
made  it.  The  burglar  has  to  use  a  drill  with  which  to  get 
into  the  safe.  Somebody  made  the  drill ;  thus  another 
great  American  industry  was  helped.  An  explosive  must 
be  used  with  which  to  blow  the  safe  open,  which  gives 
encouragement  to  another  line  of  business.  The  day  after 
the  burglary  the  bank  comes  into  the  market  for  a  new 
safe,  which  aids  another  American  industry.  The  trouble 
with  this  country  today  is  that  we  haven't  enough  bank 
burglars  to  give  us  permanent  prosperity.  Thus  we  make 
for  the  bank  burglar  the  very  argument  which  is  made 
on  behalf  of  the  saloon,  but  our  pro-liquor  friends  remain 
unconvinced. 

By  the  logic  used  on  behalf  of  the  saloon  it  can  be  proved 
that  poisoning  the  water  supply  of  a  city  results  in  eco- 
nomic benefit.  If  the  water  supply  of  a  city  is  poisoned,  in 
a  few  days  many  people  are  sick  and  dying;  the  result  of 
that  is  special  trains  pouring  in  from  every  direction  with 
doctors  to  make  a  desperate  battle  to  save  the  lives  of 
some ;  other  special  trains  follow  with  nurses  to  minister 
to  the  people ;   right   after   them   will  come   other   trains 

[102] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

loaded  with  coffins  to  bury  the  people.  A  superficial  man 
standing  on  the  street  corner  watching  the  activity  might 
say:  "This  city  is  on  the  boom;  if  this  keeps  up  we  will 
be  the  metropolis  of  the  United  States."  But  if  it  kept  up 
long  enough,  the  people  would  be  dead  and  under  ground 
and  the  city  along  with  them. 

You  cannot  build  a  city  by  poisoning  its  water  supply, 
neither  can  you  build  a  nation  by  poisoning  its  man  supply. 

For  years  the  liquor  traffic  has  been  administering  poison 
to  the  manhood  of  the  country  and  offers  as  an  excuse  for 
its  existence  the  fact  that  it  furnishes  employment  to  a  few 
men  manufacturing  the  poison. 

As  the  business  world  awakens  to  the  truth  we  get  large 
reinforcements  for  the  battle.  We  have  no  reason  to  fear 
the  economic  discussion.  We  can  meet  the  saloon  on  that 
ground,  fight  it  to  a  finish  and  bury  it  in  this  generation. 

The  second  phase  needing  quick  emphasis,  is  the  good 
government  side  of  the  case.  Coming  at  it  from  the  other 
direction,  it  can  be  stated  in  this  way :  The  saloon  is  an 
institution  which  cannot  succeed  without  special  protec- 
tion under  the  law.  It  is  not  prepared  to  exist  as  does  a 
legitimate  business ;  it  must  have  special  protection  or  it  is 
lost.  It  cannot  get  that  protection  on  its  merits.  It  has  no 
merits.  Protection  must  be  had  by  devious  processes,  by 
the  alliances  it  forms,  by  the  partnerships  in  which  it  en- 
gages. But  it  cannot  form  an  alliance  with  decent  people. 
It  has  nothing  good  to  offer  the  community  in  return  for 
the  protection  desired. 

In  one  sentence  the  difficulty  can  be  stated  as  it  presents 
itself  to  the  saloon.  The  liquor  traffic  produces  no  good 
thing;  the  saloon  turns  out  nothing  beneficial  to  the 
country. 

I  made  that  statement  a  few  weeks  since  in  one  of  the 
large  cities  visited  by  the  Flying  Squadron.  The  occasion 
was  an  afternoon  meeting  and  the  large  church  was  filled 

[103] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  the  doors.  Two  hundred  Httle  children  had  been  brought 
to  the  meeting  and  placed  in  the  front  seats.  When  I  faced 
them  I  was  terror-stricken.  I  have  no  skill  in  speaking  to 
children — a  misfortune  for  which  I  grieve  deeply.  I  could 
not  ask  to  have  them  removed,  for  that  would  have  been 
misunderstood.  The  only  course  open  was  to  go  ahead 
with  the  meeting  and  hope  the  children  would  keep  quiet 
to  the  end.  From  the  beginning  I  addressed  myself  to 
the  grown  people  and  continued  doing  so  until  I  came  to 
this  point, — the  saloon  turns  out  no  good  thing.  Like  a 
flash  it  came  to  me  that  the  children  would  get  that  point ; 
so,  looking  down  into  their  faces,  I  changed  the  form  of 
the  statement  slightly  and  repeated  it  in  this  way:  "Can 
any  one  name  any  good  thing  a  saloon  can  turn  out."  I 
thought  by  asking  a  question  I  would  stimulate  the  minds 
of  the  little  people  to  renewed  activity.  I  think  I  was  cor- 
rect about  that.  But  with  that  question  I  should  have  gone 
on  with  my  address.  I  hesitated  a  moment,  then  said  to  the 
children:  "If  any  one  can  name  one  good  thing  a  saloon 
can  turn  out,  let  him  raise  his  hand."  That  was  a  mistake. 
Never  suggest  to  children  to  raise  their  hands.  You  will 
get  a  hand  up  when  you  are  not  expecting  it  and  do  not 
want  it.  I  was  certain  no  one  would  raise  his  hand,  but 
down  in  front  a  little  lad,  so  small  that  his  heels  were  six 
inches  from  the  floor,  held  his  hand  up.  He  was  prepared 
to  name  one  good  thing  a  saloon  could  turn  out.  My  heart 
went  into  my  throat.  No  one  this  side  of  Heaven  knows 
what  a  boy  is  going  to  say  under  such  circumstances.  What 
he  was  going  to  say  I  did  not  know  and  did  not  want  to 
know.  I  hoped  he  would  take  his  hand  down,  but  instead 
he  wiggled  it  all  the  higher.  I  stepped  forward,  pointed 
my  finger  straight  at  him  and  said:  "Very  well,  my  little 
man,  name  one  good  thing  the  saloon  can  turn  out  in  the 
community."  His  childish  voice  rang  out  all  over  the 
church  as  he  answered :    "It  can  turn  out  a  good  bum." 

[104] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Sure  enough,  it  can  turn  out  a  good  hum.  He  used  the 
word  to  imply  a  finished  product.  In  the  sense  in  which  I 
used  it,  a  saloon  turns  out  no  good  thing  to  offer  the  com- 
munity in  return  for  that  which  it  asks  of  the  community. 
Its  product  is  wholly  bad,  and,  for  that  reason,  it  must  be 
found  always  associated  with  the  evil  forces  against  which 
we  war. 

It  is  no  mere  accident  that  almost  every  case  of  govern- 
ment corruption  uncovered  during  the  last  half  century 
ha?  shown  the  saloon  underneath  it. 

As  we  go  out  to  battle  for  better  things,  the  saloon  is 
doomed.  It  will  never  survive  the  estabHshment  of  good 
government. 

How  can  we  get  together  against  it?  That  question 
comes  naturally  to  mind.  Here  is  a  nation  of  a  hundred 
million  people.  How  will  we  get  right  action  from  them 
with  reference  to  the  saloon?  A  quick  answer  is— by  get- 
ting right  thinking.  Right  thinking  must  precede  right 
action. 

The  objection  will  be  made  that  we  have  a  hundred  mil- 
Hon  minds,  from  different  environment,  with  different  view 
points  and  different  ideas,  and  the  question  will  be  asked 
how  can  we  get  the  great  composite  mind  of  the  Nation  to 
work  its  way  through  to  correct  conclusions  with  reference 
to  the  saloon. 

The  problem  is  not  so  difficult  as  it  appears.  The  mind 
of  the  Nation  acts  as  does  the  m,ind  of  the  individual.  All 
intelligent  action  by  the  individual  results  from  certain 
mental  activities,  embracing  intellect,  sensibilities  and  will. 
Including  the  act,  four  words  will  describe  the  process: 
Knowing,  Feeling,  Willing,  Acting.  These  cannot  be  re- 
versed nor  interchanged.  One  does  not  act  before  he  wills. 
He  does  not  will  before  he  knows. 

An  illustration  will  place  this  before  us  quickly : 
A  boy  comes  down  the  street.    In  front  of  a  grocery  is  a 

[105] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

box  of  apples.  The  boy  knows  the  apples  are  good.  That 
has  to  do  with  his  intellect.  He  would  like  to  have  one; 
that  has  to  do  with  his  sensibilities.  He  knows  certain 
things  about  the  apples  and  he  has  certain  feelings  towards 
them.  However,  he  does  not  take  an  apple,  for  the  reason 
that  he  knows  many  other  things  about  them.  He  knows 
they  belong  to  the  grocer.  He  knows  something  of  what 
is  expected  of  a  decent  boy  in  a  civilized  community.  He 
has  some  comprehension  of  the  intricate  civilization  of 
which  he  is  a  part. 

He  feels  the  desire  for  the  apple,  but  vastly  more  he 
desires  the  approval  of  his  own  conscience.  He  would  like 
to  go  home  and  look  his  mother  squarely  in  the  eye.  As 
the  result  of  all  he  knows  and  feels,  he  wills  to  go  down 
the  street  and  leave  the  apple  alone.  He  is  an  honest  boy, 
and  his  honest  act  is  the  result  of  what  he  knows,  feels 
and  wills. 

Around  the  corner  there  comes,  let  us  suppose,  another 
boy.  He  has  been  differently  taught  in  his  home.  He  sees 
the  box  of  apples.  He  knows  they  are  good  and  he  desires 
one;  as  a  result,  he  waits  until  the  grocer's  back  is  turned, 
takes  an  apple  and  runs.  He  is  a  thief,  as  a  result  of  what 
he  knows,  feels  and  wills. 

This  is  as  true  of  a  nation  facing  a  government  problem 
as  of  a  boy  passing  a  box  of  apples  on  the  street. 

We  would  like  to  see  this  Nation  destroy  the  liquor  traf- 
fic;  but  the  Nation  cannot  destroy  the  liquor  traffic  until 
it  knows  what  the  liquor  traffic  is — until  it  feels  the  shame 
and  degradation  of  the  license  system  applied  to  the  liquor 
traffic.  It  must  know  and  feel  before  it  wills.  Knowledge 
alone  will  not  save  it. 

The  seven  thousand  three  hundred  saloon  keepers  of 
Chicago  (where  I  live)  know  more  about  the  liquor  traffic 
than  any  audience  of  people  listening  to  an  address,  but 
they  are  not  saved  from  a  bad  business  by  that  knowledge, 

[106] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

for  with  them  feeling,  sensibiHty,  desires,  are  all  wrong, 
hence  they  remain  in  a  bad  business. 

We  must  reach  the  mind  and  hearts  of  the  people.  We 
must  train  their  intellects  and  stir  their  feelings. 

For  over  a  hundred  years  there  has  been  organized  effort 
to  do  that.  It  must  be  continued;  but,  as  we  continue 
it,  we  come  to  the  third  stage  of  progress,  where  we  must 
bring  the  will  of  the  American  people  to  a  decision.  There 
have  been  years  of  divided  effort ;  it  could  not  be  other- 
wise. 

Organizations  sprang  into  existence  spontaneously  in  all 
parts  of  the  land.  This,  of  itself,  did  no  harm,  nor  would 
it  have  done  any  harm  had  it  not  been  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  factional  spirit.  We  are  so  constituted  that 
it  is  easier  for  us  to  become  attached  to  an  organization 
than  to  a  cause.  There  are  men  who  love  a  party  more 
than  they  love  anything  for  which  the  party  stands  or  ever 
stood.  There  are  men  who  love  a  church  more  than  they 
do  the  gospel  which  the  church  is  supposed  to  proclaim; 
they  fight  for  the  church  in  a  minute,  but  would  deliberate 
long  before  giving  up  a  dollar  for  the  proclamation  of  the 
gospel.  There  are  men  who  care  vastly  more  for  some  old 
college  building  than  they  ever  care  for  learning. 

With  the  coming  of  the  factional  spirit  there  came  war 
among  ourselves.  We  opposed  each  other  instead  of  the 
liquor  traffic.  Notwithstanding  all  these  shortcomings 
and  mistakes  in  zeal  and  leadership,  we  are  leagues  ahead 
of  Vv'here  we  would  have  been  had  we  not  had  all  these  dif- 
ferent organizations. 

Le  me  be  more  specific : 

I  think  the  Women's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  by 
its  plans  and  methods,  has  aroused  and  put  to  work  thou- 
sands of  people  whom  the  Anti-Saloon  League  never  could 
have  reached. 

I  think  the  Anti-Saloon  League  has  reached  and  stirred 

[107] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to    action    men    and    women    whom    the    Prohibition    Party 
could  not  have  touched. 

I  think  the  Prohibition  Party  has  done  a  work  that  could 
not  have  been  duplicated  by  the  church  Temperance  Socie- 
ties, and  I  think  they  have  done  a  work  that  the  Good 
Templars  could  not  have  done,  and  so  on. 

It  can  be  said  truthfully  of  any  one  of  these  organiza- 
tions that  it  did  a  work  no  other  could  do,  or  all  others 
combined  could  not  have  done. 

It  is  in  my  heart  to  be  thankful  for  every  organization, 
by  whatever  name  known,  that  has  ever  struck  a  blow 
anywhere  against  the  liquor  traffic. 

Whether  you  agree  with  this  or  not,  you  will  agree  that 
the  day  we  close  in  for  the  death  grapple  with  the  Hquor 
traffic  divisions  are  absolutely  fatal.  No  divided  army  can 
win  this  fight.  We  must  stand  together  to  do  it.  If  it 
takes  us  a  hundred  years  to  get  together,  it  will  take  a 
hundred  years  for  us  to  win. 

We  will  get  together  by  burying  our  non-essential 
notions  while  we  agree  upon  the  essential  things.  When 
we  get  to  the  essentials  we  will  discover  that  we  are  a 
unit  in  every  local  fight. 

The  saloon  shall  never  have  free  breath  on  any  square 
inch  of  American  soil.  Also,  we  will  keep  up  every  county 
and  state  fight.  While  we  do  all  that  we  will  further  agree 
that  down  the  road,  at  the  end  of  the  journey,  we  will  stand 
together  for  a  Nation-wide  policy  that  will  close  the  dis- 
tilleries and  breweries  which  make  the  stuff  and  shut  the 
Customs  House  against  it.  Upon  that  national  policy  we 
all  will  stand  agreed. 

The  saloon  is  a  dying  institution.  It  would  be  a  mock- 
ery to  say  that  a  Nation  devoted  to  education,  enlighten- 
ment and  religious  freedom  must  remain  under  the  control 
of  the  liquor  traffic. 

[108] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  hour  for  the  departure  of  the  saloon  is  at  hand.  The 
forces  are  forming  on  the  battle  field  for  the  last  struggle 
against  it.    The  future  will  witness  its  overthrow. 


[109] 


TWO  FORCES. 

SOME  one  has  said  that  every  life  is  the  resultant  of 
those  contending  forces  which  play  about  it.  If,  in 
that  statement  we  understand  to  be  included  the  in- 
ward forces  as  well  as  the  outward  ones ;  if  we  include 
one's  hopes,  aspirations,  plans  and  longings  as  well  as  the 
more  external  forces  which  give  direction  to  his  life,  it  can 
be  accepted  as  true.  Every  life  is  the  result  of  all  the 
forces  within  and  without  which  play  upon  it. 

If  this  be  accepted  as  true,  the  problem  of  our  Christian 
civilization  may  be  stated  in  a  sentence, — how  can  we  in- 
crease the  righteous  forces  of  evil  which  lift  men  up  and 
how  can  we  decrease  the  forces  of  evil  which  drag  men 
down?  All  that  we  do  for  the  help  of  humanity  we  do  in 
one  or  both  of  these  ways. 

If  we  could  find  a  life  that  never  had  been  touched  by 
any  evil  force,  but  always  had  been  subject  to  the  uplifting 
forces  of  right,  the  direction  of  that  life  would  be  straight 
upward  to  the  throne  of  God.  If  we  could  find  a  life  which 
had  never  come  in  contact  with  right  influences  but  always 
had  been  swayed  by  evil,  the  direction  of  that  life  would 
be  straight  downward  to  destruction. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  never  find  either  kind  of  Hfe. 
No  one  ever  comes  to  maturity  untouched  of  evil  or  unin- 
fluenced of  good.  Our  lives  are  the  product  of  mixed 
forces,  the  good  ever  struggling  with  the  evil,  and  the 
direction  of  any  life  at  any  moment  of  time  will  depend  on 
the  kind  and  quality  of  the  forces  dominant  in  that  life  at 
that  moment. 

It  would  be  in  order  now  to  consider  all  the  forces  of 
right,  which  lift  men  up,  and  match  them  with  the  in- 
fluences of  evil,  which  drag  men  down.  It  must  be  plain 
that  that  would  be  a  hopeless  undertaking  in  the  brief 
space  of  time  allotted  to  this  address. 

[1111 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Here  and  now  I  put  this  arbitrary  limit  upon  myself:  I 
will  consider  but  one  single  force  on  the  side  of  righteous- 
ness, placing  over  against  it  but  one  force  of  evil,  leaving 
all  others  to  go  unconsidered  in  this  discussion.  It  should 
be  unnecessary  to  say  that  on  each  side  I  will  select  the 
strongest  and  most  powerful  representative. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  forces  of  right.  What  is  the 
strongest  influence  in  the  world  for  the  uplift  of  humanity? 
Without  a  moment  of  hesitation,  I  answer,  the  church. 
The  church  is  the  strongest  single  force  on  the  side  of 
right.  It  is  not  claimed  that  the  church  is  a  perfect  insti- 
tution. How  could  it  be?  Consider  its  makeup  or  compo- 
sition. It  has  to  accept  all  who  present  themselves.  It 
cannot,  like  a  lodge  or  society,  sit  in  judgment  on  those 
who  come  asking  to  be  associated  with  it.  The  meanest, 
vilest  sinner,  if  he  come  pleading  forgiveness  for  the  past, 
and  in  faith  asking  for  help  in  the  future,  must  be  received. 

Under  such  circumstances  is  it  to  be  a  cause  of  wonder 
if  the  church  finds  herself  possessed  of  unworthy  material? 
Yet,  notwithstanding  this  apparent  disadvantage,  the 
church  can  invite  comparison  with  any  organization  as  to 
the  kind  and  quality  of  the  material  of  which  it  is  composed. 

But  this  is  not  the  most  important  point.  Whatever  one 
may  think  about  the  teaching  or  doctrine  of  the  church 
the  proposition  upon  which  all  must  agree  is  that  the  ch'^rch 
cannot  succeed  without  helping  humanity,  and  it  cannot 
fail  without  its  failure  resulting  in  harm  and  injury  to 
humanity.  If  a  year  from  now  it  were  discovered  that 
the  church  had  gained  in  strength  and  power,  life  and 
property  would  be  safer.  There  would  be  fewer  hungry 
women  and  children  and  less  of  crime  and  disorder.  On 
the  contrary  were  it  discovered  that  the  church  had  lost 
ground  and  that  its  influence  had  decreased,  life  and  prop- 
erty would  be  less  safe  and  secure ;  there  would  be  more  of 
poverty  and  crime.     Once  again  let  it  be  said,  the  church 

[112] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

cannot  succeed  save  by  helping  humanity  and  its  failure 
must  prove  an  injury  to  humanity.  So  I  stand  it  on  the 
right  and  declare  that  it  is  the  most  powerful  influence  for 
the  uplift  of  humanity  known  to  the  mind  of  men. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  left.  We  are  looking  now  for  the 
strongest  influence  acting  as  a  drag  upon  mankind.  There 
is  but  one  answer.  The  most  powerfully  organized  evil 
force  tending  to  pull  humanity  down  is  the  law-protected 
saloon.  Let  me  be  more  than  just  to  the  saloon  keeper. 
Here  and  now  no  question  is  raised  as  to  his  honesty  or 
motives.  Without  doubt  saloon  keepers  could  be  found  who 
would  plead  that  it  is  all  a  matter  of  business.  Such  an 
one  might  say :  "My  purpose  in  running  a  saloon  is  to 
get  the  means  by  which  to  procure  food  and  clothing  for 
my  wife  and  children  and  medical  and  surgical  attention 
for  an  invalid  daughter  in  my  home." 

One  cannot  quarrel  with  him  as  to  his  purpose.  It  is 
splendid.  But  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  purpose. 
The  question  we  have  to  consider  is  this :  If  he  sells  the 
stuff  will  it  keep  other  men  from  getting  food  and  clothing 
for  their  wives  and  children;  if  he  runs  a  saloon  on  the 
corner  will  he  keep  other  men  from  getting  medical  and 
surgical  attention   for  the  invalid  daughters  at  their  homes. 

But  one  view  can  be  taken;  there  is  but  one  conclusion 
to  which  we  can  come.  It  can  be  stated  in  a  sentence ! 
The  saloon  can  succeed  only  by  harming  and  injuring  hu- 
manity and  its  failure  is  a  blessing  and  a  help  to  humanity. 

Along  with  what  has  been  said  thus  far  permit  me  to 
make  another  statement.  This  is  a  Christian  State.  That 
may  be  a  surprising  bit  of  information,  but  it  is  true.  What 
is  meant  by  the  term  Christian  State?  So  much  more  is 
meant  than  some  might  agree  to,  that,  in  order  to  avoid 
useless  discussion,  let  it  be  understood  that  so  far  as  this 
address  is  concerned,  I  mean  only  this,  that  Christian  men 
in  this  State  are  sufficiently  numerous  and  ir-uuential  to 

[113] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

control  the  policy  of  the  State  as  to  any  matter  of  right 
and  wrong  on  which  they  stand  together.  Bad  men  admit 
that  even  more  quickly  than  good  men  claim  it.  The 
decent  high-minded  Christian  men  of  this  State  can  con- 
trol it  if  they  will. 

That  brings  us  to  this  question :  How  are  we  to  account 
for  the  fact  that  this  State,  under  the  control  of  Christian 
men,  who  have  absolute  power  to  shape  its  policy,  con- 
tinues to  license,  legalize  and  protect  the  Hquor  traffic? 
Let  us  dispose  of  the  negative  first.  Let  us  consider  how 
not  to  account  for  it.  Here  is  where  no  little  harm  has 
been  done.  There  is  a  word  to  be  said  on  behalf  of  the 
advocate  who  has  blundered  at  this  point.  Sometimes  he 
comes  before  his  audience  tired  and  worn  out.  The  fight 
perhaps  has  gone  against  him.  He  found  men  cold  and 
indifferent  when  he  thought  it  would  be  easy  to  arouse 
them  to  action. 

So,  taking  counsel  of  his  disappointment  and  heart-ache, 
invariably  bad  counselors,  he  decides  to  speak  his  mind. 
He  says  to  himself:  "For  once  I  will  enjoy  the  luxury  of 
speaking  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  truth  instead  of  sixty-six 
and  two-thirds  per  cent,  as  I  have  been  doing  all  along.  I 
will  tell  this  audience  how  it  happens  that  this  Christian  State 
protects  the  liquor  traffic."  Then  he  makes  the  startling  an- 
nouncement: "It  is  because  Christian  men  in  this  State  are 
hyprocrites  and  frauds." 

After  having  said  that,  his  influence  is  gone.  I  am  not 
sure  but  the  penalty  is  just.  No  man  deserves  to  hold  his 
influence  as  a  public  teacher  who  allows  himself  to  be 
tricked  into  any  such  statement.  Christian  men,  generally 
speaking,  are  not  hypocrites  and  frauds.  They  are  made 
up  of  the  kind  of  material  willing  to  be  stood  up  and  be 
shot  to  death  for  the  church  or  country  if  either  needed 
such  sacrifice.  Hypocrites  and  frauds  are  not  made  of 
such  stuff. 

[114] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Where,  then,  is  the  difficulty?     What  is  the  answer? 

We  need  not  go  far  afield  in  replying  to  these  questions. 
The  average  Christian  man  fails  to  reahze  where  he  gears 
up  to  the  State.  He  fails  to  see  that  the  State  gets  power 
from  him,  and  such  as  he,  by  which  to  do  this  bad  and 
vicious  thing.  He  knows  that  at  heart  he  is  opposed  to 
it ;  that  he  prays  against  it ;  that  he  longs  for  the  complete 
destruction  of  the  Hquor  traffic,  and  he  fails  to  see  how, 
under  those  circumstances,  he  can  be  in  any  way  respon- 
sible for  it. 

It  is  as  though  one,  standing  on  a  street  corner  watching 
electric  cars  pass  by,  were  to  ask,  "Where  is  the  power 
that  moves  the  car?"  The  answer  might  be,  "In  a  power- 
house miles  away."  A  discussion  follows  immediately 
which  brings  out  the  fact  that  when  there  is  direct  con- 
nection by  wire  between  the  dynamo  in  the  power-house 
and  the  motor  in  the  car  the  latter  must  revolve  with  the 
turning  of  the  dynamo.  No  one  knows  why  this  must  be. 
We  know  only  that  it  is  true,  that  it  is  an  unfailing  law  of 
electrical  action. 

So  it  is  with  the  State,  which  is  a  motor  receiving  its 
power  from  citizen-dynamos.  That  power  is  transmitted 
through  the  ballot  box.  If  we  have  saloon  government 
we  get  it  out  of  the  ballot  box,  for  we  get  all  our  govern- 
ment that  way.  We  can't  get  saloon  government  out  of 
the  ballot  box  unless  the  citizen  puts  it  in  there. 

We  begin  an  election  with  an  empty  ballot  box.  If  it  is 
an  honest  election  we  do.  At  night  when  the  ballots  are 
counted  if  we  find  we  have  taken  from  the  ballot  box  gov- 
ernment or  administration  favorable  to  the  saloon,  we 
know  those  who  went  to  the  ballot  box  during  the  day 
must  have  put  it  in  there. 

There  is  no  escaping  the  conclusion, — good,  well-mean- 
ing men,  who  would  rejoice  in  the  triumph  of  right,  have, 
partly  from  indifference  and  largely  from  ignorance,  given 

[1151 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

their  consent  that  the  liquor  traffic  enjoy  the  protection 
of  the  law. 

What  is  the  remedy?     What  is  to  be  done? 

There  must  be  a  campaign  of  education.  The  facts  must 
be  brought  to  the  people  and  men  must  be  called  to  duty 
and  be  made  to  realize  their  responsibility. 

The  liquor  traffic  has  many  defenders  but  no  defense. 
Its  flimsy  claims  to  consideration  would  be  pathetic  were 
they  not  so  wicked. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  saloon  must  be  licensed  because 
under  prohibition  the  drinker  would  not  find  it  possible  to 
procure  his  desired  beverage.  Therefore,  it  is  urged  that 
he  is  robbed  of  his  personal  liberty,  as  though  the  crav- 
ings of  a  diseased  body  and  a  crazed  brain  could  by  any 
possibility  measure  his  rights  and  his  liberty. 

No  man  can  claim  the  liberty  to  do  that  which  harms 
his  fellow  men.  The  right  of  women  to  walk  the  streets 
unmolested  is  greater  than  the  personal  liberty  of  any  man 
to  make  himself  a  disgusting  drunkard. 

No  man  has  the  right  by  means  of  drink  to  turn  his  wife 
and  children  over  to  other  men  to  support  while  he  spends 
his  money  to  appease  an  appetite. 

The  personal  liberty  argument  is  on  the  side  of  prohi- 
bition. 

There  is  no  greater  question  demanding  consideration. 
It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  solution  of  the  liquor  prob- 
lem be  permitted  to  wait  on  more  important  matters. 
Questions  of  government  and  administrative  detail  and 
policy  need  not  be  held  back  because  the  larger  question 
of  prohibition  is  pending.  While  it  is  being  considered 
the  people  and  their  government  need  not  come  to  a  stand- 
still. 

It  is  a  favorite  trick  of  those  who  wish  to  delay  con- 
sideration of  this  greatest  question  to  offer  to  help  solve 
it  as  soon  as  some  other  subject  is  out  of  the  way  when 

[116] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that  other  subject  is  one  on  which  there  is  no  substantial 
agreement  and  never  will  be. 

For  example:  What  folly  it  is  to  talk  about  settling 
the  tariff  question  before  we  consider  the  problem  of  the 
saloon !  The  tariff  question  never  has  been  settled  and 
from  the  nature  of  the  case  never  will  be  settled.  If  we 
could  agree  finally  and  for  all  time  to  come  that  this  is 
to  be  a  high  tariff  country  we  would  until  the  end  of  time 
be  forever  discussing  that  high  tariff.  Were  we  to  make 
a  permanent  decision  to  the  effect  that  forever  after,  this 
is  to  be  a  low  tariff  country,  the  details  of  that  low  tariff 
would  remain  for  constant  consideration  and  discussion. 

The  tariff  will  be  with  us  to  the  end  of  time  in  all  prob- 
abihty.  We  will  deal  with  it  the  better  if  we  consider  it 
as  a  sober  nation. 

We  are  urged  by  some  to  desist  from  the  agitation  of 
the  saloon  question  until  the  fight  for  good  government 
is  won.  The  answer  is  that  the  forces  battling  for  better 
government  need  nothing  so  much  as  a  high,  moral,  con- 
crete idea  around  which  to  rally  their  forces.  A  campaign 
which  has  no  other  object  than  to  elect  one  man  because 
he  is  supposed  to  be  a  little  better  than  another  man 
when  neither  stands  for  any  vital  principle  does  not  stir 
the  depth  of  feeling  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  that  can 
be  aroused  once  the  appeal  is  made  for  something  which 
touches  their  higher  natures.  In  American  politics  we 
need  now,  more  than  anything  else,  a  great  moral  revival. 
A  discussion  of  the  saloon  problem  would  bring  us  to  that 
quickly. 

We  are  approaching  the  time  when  candidates  for  office 
and  public  men  generally  must  make  some  avowal  of  their 
position  with  reference  to  the  liquor  traffic.  There  was 
a  time  when  it  was  sufficient  for  a  candidate  to  tell  how 
he  had  promised  his  sainted  mother  never  to  touch  the 
stuff,  to  get  the  votes  of  right  minded  people,  while  of 

[117] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

course  he  did  not  lose  the  votes  of  those  who  wished  the 
liquor  traffic  protected.     But  that  day  has  passed. 

The  patriotic  citizen  of  today,  determined  to  see  the  gov- 
ernment oppose  the  saloon,  would  rather  vote  for  a  man 
who  drinks,  much  as  he  dislikes  so  to  do,  provided  that 
man,  notwithstanding  his  drinking  habit,  is  against  the 
law-protected  saloon  and  in  favor  of  its  overthrow,  than 
to  vote  for  some  smooth  citizen  who  makes  loud  protesta- 
tions as  to  his  sobriety  and  the  fact  that  he  never  goes 
into  a  saloon,  but  stands  for  the  license  system  and  in 
favor  of  the  protection  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Ordinarily 
the  decent  citizen  will  not  have  to  vote  for  a  drinking 
man  in  order  to  express  his  righteous  conviction  but  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  it  is  better  to  vote  for  what  we 
want  and  fail  to  get  it  than  to  vote  for  what  we  do  not 
want  and  get  a  lot  of  it. 

It  has  been  the  mission  of  the  Flying  Squadron  of 
America  to  put  the  acute  accent  on  this  syllable.  Our 
position  is  expressed  in  a  single  sentence  written  by  our 
leader,  J.  Frank  Hanly,  and  adopted  by  the  Convention  of 
the  Anti-Saloon  League  to  which  he  submitted  it : 

"Whenever  a  politician  or  an  executive  officer  or  a  politi- 
cal party  prefers  the  liquor  traffic  above  the  public  morals, 
such  men  must  be  set  aside  and  such  parties  abandoned." 

To  the  accomplishment  of  this  high  purpose  and  of  the 
creation  of  the  power  to  make  it  effective  let  us  solemnly 
dedicate  ourselves,  covenanting  with  each  other  and  with 
the  Father  that  there  shall  be  no  turning  back,  no  wavering. 


118] 


THE  SALOON  VERSUS  BUSINESS. 

I  AM  to  speak  to  you  on  the  business  side  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  saloon.   What  we  call  business  grows  out  of 
humanity's  effort  to  make  a  living  for  itself.   Humanity's 
effort  to  get  food,  clothing  and  shelter  gives  us  business 
as  we  now  have  it.     If  these  things  came  down  upon  us 
like  rain  from  heaven  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as 
business.    But  the  things  of  life  come  from  the  application 
of  our  strength  and  power  to  the  natural  agents  with  which 
God  has  provided  us.     A  farmer  goes  into  the  field,  pre- 
pares the  soil,  sows  the  seed  and  reaps  the  harvest.     It  is 
plain   that   the   food  which   he  produces   grows   out   of   the 
application  of  his   mind  and  strength  to  the  natural   re- 
sources in  the  form  of  the  soil.     Another  goes  into  the 
forest,  cuts  down  the  trees,  saws  them  up  into  lumber  and 
builds   himself  a   home.     The   shelter   which  he   provides 
grows  out  of  the  appHcation  of  his  mind  and  strength  to 
the  natural  resources  in  the  form  of  the  forest.     All  the 
blessings  of  life  come  to  us  as  the  result  of  similar  effort. 
Business  has  to  do  with  the  production  and  the  exchange, 
the  transportation  and  distribution  of  the  things  of  hfe. 
If  the  saloon  helps  in  those  things  it  is  a  benefit  to  business. 
If  not,  it  is  not  a  benefit  to  business,  and  the  strongest 
claim  it  makes  for  itself  falls  to  the  ground  from  lack  of 
support. 

Let  us  suppose  we  were  founding  a  new  State,  and  we 
have  decided  that  no  one  may  have  a  place  with  us  in  our 
Commonwealth  unless  he  bears  his  share  of  humanity's 
burden.  Every  applicant  for  membership  must  stand  or 
fall  by  that  test.  Let  us  suppose  also  that  we  are  here, 
sitting  as  charter  members,  ready  to  pass  upon  the  claims 
of  those  who  wish  to  join  with  us.  The  first  man  to  apply 
is  a  blacksmith,  and  we  take  him  in,  for  it  is  clear  that  he 
will  be  a  benefit  and  a  help  to  the  producing  forces  of  our 

[119] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

new  State.  He  will  shoe  our  horses,  repair  broken  machin- 
ery, sharpen  tools  and  be  otherwise  helpful.  For  these 
reasons  we  accept  him.  The  next  man  to  apply  is  a  doctor. 
And  we  take  the  doctor  in,  for  he  will  help  us  to  health 
and  strength,  which  are  strong  industrial  factors.  The 
next  man  to  apply  is  a  thief,  and  him  we  reject,  because  he 
will  not  add  anything  to  the  productive  forces  of  our  com- 
munity. The  last  applicant  we  consider  at  this  moment 
is  a  saloon  keeper.  He  asks  to  be  taken  into  the  com- 
munity, or  State,  to  operate  saloons.  Assuming  that  we 
were  passing  on  the  applicant  free  from  bias  and  preju- 
dice, it  would  take  but  a  few  minutes  to  decide  our  course. 
He  would  be  rejected.  We  accept  the  blacksmith  and  doc- 
tor for  obvious  reasons,  and  we  would  reject  the  thief  and 
saloon  keeper  for  reasons  equally  plain. 

Underneath  the  entire  matter  of  business  is  the  market. 
That  interests  everyone.  The  merchant  is  interested  in 
the  market  for  the  goods  on  his  shelf,  the  manufacturer 
for  the  product  of  his  factory,  the  laboring  man  for  his 
labor,  and  the  professional  man  for  his  skill.  The  market 
depends,  in  part,  upon  our  needs,  but  only  in  small  part. 
Needs  are  insistent.  They  demand  instant  attention.  But 
our  wants  and  desires  have  vastly  more  to  do  with  busi- 
ness than  our  needs.  We  do  not  clothe  ourselves  accord- 
ing to  our  needs,  but  according  to  our  wants  and  desires. 
The  savage  dresses  according  to  his  needs,  but  he  never 
develops  clothing  factories.  We  do  not  set  our  tables 
according  to  our  need  for  food,  but  according  to  our  wants 
and  desires.  The  savage  lives  on  the  lower  plane  of  needs, 
and  the  civilized  man  on  the  higher  plane  of  desires.  Busi- 
ness is  vitally  interested  in  the  wants  and  desires  of  men, 
for  nine-tenths  of  the  volume  of  business  depends  upon 
these  higher  calls.  The  saloon,  instead  of  leading  men 
into  the  higher  sphere,  drags  them  down  to  the  lower. 
The  drunkard,  like  the  savage,  lives  close  to  the  line  of  his 

[120] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

actual  needs,  and  oftentimes  goes  below  it,  starving  wife 
and  children.  Anything  which  tends  to  produce  drunken- 
ness lowers  the  level  upon  which  the  Nation  hves,  and  that 
which  lowers  the  level  of  a  Nation's  Hfe  decreases  its 
volume  of  business. 

It  is  true  enough  that  the  saloon  looks  like  a  business, 
acts  like  a  business  and  conducts  itself  like  a  business. 
But  it  is  not  a  business.  It  is  a  counterfeit.  There  are 
three  proofs  to  that  effect  which  can  be  given  quickly. 
The  first  has  been  covered  already,  so  one  sentence  will 
restate  it.  The  genuine  business  helps  and  benefits  its 
customer.  The  saloon  harms  and  injures  its  customer. 
"But,"  says  some  one,  "if  the  saloon  harms  its  customer, 
how  does  it  happen  to  have  a  customer?"  That  brings  us 
to  the  second  proof.  The  saloon  has  customers  by  virtue 
of  the  unfair  grip  that  it  gets  upon  men.  Men  do  not  buy 
drink  as  they  buy  other  things.  Men  do  not  get  drunk 
as  they  do  other  things.  There  is  a  world  of  difference 
among  men  in  that  respect.  If  a  man  were  to  go  into  a 
furniture  store  to  buy  some  household  furniture,  three 
things  would  settle  for  him  how  much  he  would  buy: 
What  does  he  need  in  the  way  of  furniture?  What  does 
he  want  in  the  way  of  furniture?  And  how  much  money 
has  he  to  spend  that  way?  Those  three  things  will  settle 
it  every  time.  But  a  man  does  not  get  drunk  that  way. 
No  man  needs  to  get  drunk ;  no  man  desires  to  get  drunk. 
It  is  appetite  instead  of  desire  that  leads  one  to  get  drunk, 
and  no  man  can  afford  it.  If  he  had  all  the  wealth  in  the 
world  he  couldn't  afford  to  spend  five  cents  for  a  thing 
that  does  him  physical  harm  and  damage.  Men  buy  drink 
in  direct  violation  of  the  fixed  principles  that  are  under- 
neath legitimate  trade. 

I  had  to  thrash  that  out  years  ago  in  a  debate  in  my  own 
home  city  with  a  lawyer,  who  insisted  that  my  mind  didn't 
work  on  the  saloon  question  as  it  would  on  any  other.    He 

[121] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

told  people  that  I  believed  that  drink  and  drunkenness  did 
harm,  and  that  therefore  I  was  against  all  drinking.  And 
because  some  saloons  did  harm,  that  I  was  in  favor  of 
closing  all  saloons.  And  he  was  right  about  it.  "Now," 
said  he,  "there  are  unhealthy  barber  shops  in  Chicago, 
which  spread  disease  and  death,  but  no  one  ever  heard  of 
Mr.  Stewart  starting  a  campaign  to  close  all  the  barber 
shops  and  to  prevent  men  from  shaving."  My  short-cut 
answer  to  that  was  that  there  is  this  difiference  between  a 
barber  shop  and  a  saloon :  "When  a  man  goes  into  a  bar- 
ber shop  to  get  a  shave  he  is  not  seized  at  once  with  an 
uncontrollable  desire  to  get  another  shave."  If  barber 
shops  had  that  effect  upon  people  they  would  be  closed 
quickly  enough.  Men  buy  drink  in  direct  violation  of  the 
principles  of  legitimate  trade.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  a 
saloon  keeper  can  station  a  friend  on  the  front  side  of  his 
bar,  furnish  him  with  a  pocketful  of  change,  and  by  treat- 
ing men  from  time  to  time,  this  friend  can  largely  increase 
the  sales  for  the  saloon  keeper.  And  that  practice  is  fol- 
lowed in  more  than  one  saloon  throughout  the  country. 
Suppose  a  baker  undertook  to  sell  goods  in  that  way,  and 
stationed  a  man  in  front  of  the  bakery  with  instructions 
to  bring  friends  in  and  treat  them  to  doughnuts  or  cookies. 
Instead  of  going  on  to  success,  the  bakery  would  go  into 
bankruptcy.  The  saloon  is  not  a  business.  It  is  a  coun- 
terfeit. 

The  third  proof  is  found  in  the  fact  that  all  legitimate 
business  is  proud  of  its  product.  No  one  is  ever  ashamed 
of  the  good  thing  he  produces,  and  every  fair  and  expo- 
sition will  have  on  exhibition  the  best  products  of  the  busi- 
ness world.  But  who  ever  saw  on  exhibition  at  a  county 
fair  or  state  fair  one  poor,  old,  ragged  drunkard  in  a  glass 
case  with  a  tag  on  him  explaining  whose  whisky  made 
him  a  drunkard,  or  what  saloon  brought  him  to  his 
wretched  condition? 

11221 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

It  will  be  admitted  that  the  saloon  falls  short  of  being 
a  legitimate  business,  but  the  claim  will  be  made  for  it 
that  it  is  a  revenue  producer,  and  that  as  such  it  deserves 
some  favorable  consideration.  The  truth  is,  the  saloon 
never  produced  a  dollar  of  revenue,  and  never  will. 

All  revenue  comes  from  the  wealth  that  some  one  pro- 
duces. It  is  not  possible  to  get  a  dollar  of  revenue  in  any 
other  way.  But  the  saloon  is  not  a  wealth  producer.  It 
is  a  wealth  destroyer.  A  farmer  creates  wealth.  He  goes 
out  into  the  field  and  produces  the  harvest,  and  adds  his 
harvest  to  the  world's  wealth.  The  watch-maker  will  take, 
let  us  suppose,  five  dollars'  worth  of  raw  material  and  turn 
out  a  watch  worth  ten  dollars.  In  that  event  he  adds  five 
dollars  to  the  world's  wealth. 

But  the  saloon  does  exactly  the  opposite.  Instead  of 
taking  raw  material  and  turning  out  a  finished  product, 
he  takes  the  valuable  finished  product  and  turns  it  out 
worthless  and  ruined.  The  saloon  is  not  a  producer  of 
revenue.  It  is  a  collector.  The  honest  citizen  is  the  pro- 
ducer. The  toiler  and  the  business  man  produce  wealth. 
The  saloon  collects  it  by  means  of  the  appetites  of  men, 
and  but  a  small  fraction  of  what  it  collects  ever  finds  its 
way  to  the  public  treasury.  The  far  greater  part  of  it  is 
kept  by  the  liquor  traffic  as  a  commission  for  collecting  the 
smaller  part. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  we  get  benefit  from  the  saloon  by  its 
indirect  help  to  industry.  The  farmer  who  finds  a  market 
for  a  small  per  cent,  of  his  grain  because  that  amount  is 
used  in  the  so-called  liquor  industry  would  have  a  far 
larger  market  in  the  form  of  the  hungry  women  and  chil- 
dren who  would  be  properly  fed  if  husbands  and  fathers 
did  not  waste  their  money  for  drink.  The  men  in  the  glass 
industry  who  are  manufacturing  bottles,  glasses,  etc.,  for 
the  liquor  trade  would  find  a  far  greater  demand  for  glass- 

fl231 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ware  for  the  home  if  money  that  ought  to  be  so  spent  were 
not  being  wasted  for  drink. 

There  is  no  defense  on  the  industrial  side  for  the  saloon. 
It  spells  waste,  and  only  waste,  and  the  great  business 
world  is  coming  to  see  it.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  indus- 
trial argument  is  the  greatest  one.  I  think  the  moral  side 
of  the  case  is  as  much  above  the  industrial  as  the  soul  is 
above  the  body.  But  if  we  gave  up  every  line  of  argument 
but  the  economic  one,  the  business  world,  guided  by  the 
principles  of  industrial  development,  would  make  a  speedy 
end  to  the  saloon. 


124] 


A   POLITICAL  PROPHECY. 

IT  is  not  my  purpose  to  make  an  argument.  This  is 
to  be  a  prophecy.  Prophecies  are  always  more  or  less 
interesting.  Next  to  saying,  "I  told  you  so,"  after  the 
event,  is  the  joy  of  telling  in  advance  how  the  event  is  to 
transpire.     Thai  pleasure  is  to  be  mine. 

I  recall  the  high  degree  of  interest  with  which  as  a  boy 
I  heard  for  the  first  time  of  the  old  lady  in  the  community 
who  could  tell  by  the  coffee  grounds  in  the  cup  what  was 
to  happen  the  next  day.  I  had  heard  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  entertained  considerable  respect  for 
him,  but  it  was  small  as  compared  with  my  feelings  toward 
her.  Of  course,  I  learned  later  that  nothing  of  the  kind 
can  be  done. 

No  one  can  tell  me  what  may  or  may  not  happen  to  me 
in  the  next  twenty-four  hours  or  seconds  of  time.  But, 
while  that  cannot  be  done  for  the  individual,  strange  to 
say,  it  may  be  done  for  men  in  the  mass. 

A  life  insurance  company  will  tell  us  that  out  of  a  cer- 
tain number  of  men,  whose  names  appear  upon  the  records 
of  the  company  during  the  year,  so  many  will  die.  Some- 
times the  number  dying  will  agree  almost  absolutely  with 
the  figures  given  in  advance  by  the  company;  that  is  not 
because  any  one  knows  what  man  will  die  or  what  man 
will  live,  but  because  there  is  a  certain  law  of  life,  or  of 
death,  if  one  prefers — a  law  of  chances  or  averages  which 
works  its  way  out  unerringly  on  the  large  group  of  men 
over  a  protracted  period  of  time. 

The  figures  of  the  life  insurance  company  are  based  not 
on  guess-work,  but  on  law. 

That  gets  me  around  to  the  first  statement  upon  which 
the  prophecy  I  am  to  make  will  rest.  It  is  based  upon  four 
statements  which  can  be  made  quickly. 

The  first  is  that  we  are  part  of  a  universe  governed  by 

[125] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

law.  We  are  part  of  a  great  material  creation  under  the 
sway  of  law.  During  a  certain  part  of  the  year  the  planet 
Jupiter  hangs  a  lambent  flame  in  our  southern  skies.  He 
appears  four  minutes  earlier  each  evening  and  moves 
across  the  heavens  in  majestic  splendor.  One  with  a  mere 
smattering  knowledge  of  the  heavens  can  tell  us  that 
Jupiter  flung  five  times  as  far  out  into  space  from  the  Sun 
as  we,  and  more  than  a  thousand  times  as  large  as  this 
Earth  of  ours,  moves  about  his  appointed  orbit  according 
to  the  same  law  of  motion  which  applies  to  us. 

Neptune,  so  far  distant  that  the  unaided  eye  is  not  able 
to  detect  him,  swings  about  the  Sun  according  to  the  same 
laws  of  motion  and  gravitation  that  apply  to  us. 

Astronomers  are  a  unit  in  believing  that  if  some  more 
powerful  telescope  should  some  day  bring  to  light  a  still 
more  distant  planet  than  any  now  known  to  us  it,  too, 
would  revolve  about  the  Sun  according  to  the  everlasting 
law  of  planetary  motion — that  the  cube  of  the  distance  of 
a  planet  from  the  Sun  will  be  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
square  of  the  time  in  which  it  makes  its  revolution  about 
the  Sun. 

It  is  not  doubted  that  the  utmost  star  in  the  depths  of 
space  responds  to  gravitation  by  the  same  law  that  gov- 
erns the  Moon  as  it  moves  about  the  Earth. 

The  flower  which  blossoms  forth  in  beauty  does  so  in 
obedience  to  law,  so  does  the  stream  that  comes  tumbling 
down  the  mountainside ;  they  are  part  of  a  great  physical 
universe  governed  by  law. 

My  second  statement  is  like  unto  the  first.  We  are  part 
of  a  moral  and  spiritual  empire  under  the  reign  of  law. 
It  may  be  said,  "You  cannot  prove  that."  My  answer  is, 
I  do  not  have  to  prove  it.  I  content  myself  by  saying  it. 
I  am  not  required  to  prove  it  for  the  reason  the  objector 
himself  believes  it. 

We  know  so  little  of  the  heart  and  soul  of  man  tiiat  we 

[126] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

are  not  able  to  read  the  law  in  express  terms,  but  the  objec- 
tor and  I  alike  believe  in  it. 

If  we  knew  all  that  there  is  to  be  known  about  human- 
ity we  could  predict  the  presence  of  mankind  upon  the 
battlefield  of  the  future  winning  a  victory  for  God  and 
man  with  the  same  certainty  by  which  an  astronomer  pre- 
dicts a  coming  eclipse. 

Humanity  has  moved  onward  and  upward  in  obedience 
to  God-given  impulses  which  are  working  their  way  out  in 
us  and  for  us,  in  obedience  to  divinely  ordained  law. 

My  third  statement  is  that  the  truth  is  immortal.  At 
once  I  will  be  urged  to  proceed,  giving  no  more  attention 
to  that  statement,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  accepted  by 
everybody— doubted  by  none.  But  the  contrary  is  true; 
there  are  those  who  deny  it.  As  great  a  man  as  John 
Stuart  Mill  said:  "There  is  no  more  immortality  about 
truth  than  there  is  about  error.  If  you  stamp  out  every 
one  who  beheves  in  error,  your  error  is  gone.  Were  you 
to  stamp  out  every  one  who  believes  the  truth,  the  truth 
would  be  gone.  There  is  no  more  immortahty  about  truth 
than  error." 

He  then  added:  "Of  course,  the  truth,  being  the  truth, 
is  Hable  to  be  rediscovered  by  another  generation  after 
you  have  stamped  out  every  one  who  believes  it."  That 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  it  is  immortal.  Its  Hability 
to  rediscovery  constitutes  its  immortality. 

If  every  one  who  knows  the  multiplication  table  were 
to  forget  it,  a  new  generation  would  begin  the  discovery 
of  it  tomorrow.  The  multiplication  table  would  not  be 
lost  by  losing  every  one  who  knew  it.  As  the  essence  of 
mathematical  truth,  its  rediscovery  would  begin  at  once. 
Therein  we  find  the  glorious  difference  between  truth  and 
error.  The  truth  may  go  down  in  a  fight,  but  it  goes  down 
always  to  rise  again,  while  error  goes  down  without  one 
star  of  hope  shining  over  its  grave. 

[127] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

There  is  no  resurrection  for  error.  The  truth,  which 
is  immortal,  frees  men ;  it  is  the  only  thing  which  has,  and 
the  one  thing  which  always  will,  free  humanity.  Truth 
is  immortal. 

My  fourth  and  last  statement  is  that  ours  is  the  genera- 
tion of  childhood.  I  did  not  say  children.  Every  gen- 
eration has  known  children.  It  remained  for  our  gener- 
ation to  discover  childhood.  The  proof  of  that  will  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  only  recently  has  Congress  awak- 
ened to  the  duty  we  owe  to  childhood.  The  same  is  true 
of  state  legislatures.  Only  lately  have  we  had  child  wel- 
fare exhibits  and  medical  inspection  in  our  public  schools. 
In  a  hundred  ways  it  could  be  shown  that  ours  is  the  gen- 
eration of  childhood. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  for  me  to  say  that  the  one 
thing  in  my  own  life  of  which  I  am  proudest  (I  mean  that 
part  of  my  life  in  which  the  public  has  any  interest)  is  that 
some  years  since,  as  a  member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature, 
I  was  made  a  member  of  a  special  committee  to  draw  up 
a  child  labor  bill  for  the  consideration  of  the  Illinois  House 
of  Representatives,  and  my  hand  helped  to  write  the  bill, 
and  my  vote  helped  to  make  it  a  law,  that  closed  the  fac- 
tories of  Illinois  to  the  little  children  of  the  State  and 
opened  the  schools  to  their  willing  feet.  I  am  more  proud 
of  that  than  any  other  service  it  has  ever  been  my  pleasure 
to  render. 

And  now  my  prophecy : 

Because  we  are  a  part  of  a  universe  governed  by  law; 
because  we  are  a  part  of  a  moral  and  spiritual  empire  under 
the  reign  of  law ;  because  the  truth  is  immortal  and  never 
can  be  lost,  and  because  our  generation  has  determined 
to  protect  the  childhood  of  the  race,  the  liquor  traffic  has 
to  die.  It  runs  contrary  to  the  deep  and  abiding  things 
which  make  for  human  progress. 

No  nation  can  deserve  the   respect  of  the  world,  cer- 

[128] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

tainly  not  of  its  own  citizenship,  if  it  willfully  determines 
to  forsake  its  childhood  and  womanhood,  leaving  them  to 
the  mercies  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

The  saloon  has  grown  in  power  and  influence  in  this 
country  during  the  last  half  century,  but  there  has  never 
been  a  day  of  that  time  when  it  has  been  the  deliberate 
purpose  of  the  American  people  to  foster  the  saloon.  It 
will  go  whenever  we  can  make  the  people  think  about  it. 
The  Flying  Squadron  came  into  the  field  to  help  bring 
about  that  result. 

The  futile  objections  offered  by  the  liquor  traffic  to  pro- 
hibition in  State  and  Nation  are  strong  proofs  of  the  weak- 
ness of  its  position.  They  claim  that  our  policy  will  violate 
the  principles  of  personal  liberty,  whereas  no  such  principle 
is  at  stake  in  the  solution  of  the  liquor  problem.  Each  of 
us  is  entitled  to  as  much  personal  liberty  as  he  can  enjoy 
without  interfering  with  the  rights  of  others.  A  child  has 
a  far  better  right  to  be  well  fed  and  clothed  than  his  father 
has  to  get  drunk.  A  wife  has  a  better  right  to  a  home 
properly  furnished  than  her  husband  has  to  spend  for  drink 
the  money  to  which  she  is  entitled. 

No  man  has  a  right  to  spread  disease.  No  man  has  a 
right  to  place  in  jeopardy  the  lives  and  health  of  the  people 
of  his  community. 

No  man,  in  the  name  of  personal  liberty,  can  claim  a 
right  to  be  a  drunkard  or  to  make  other  men  drunkards. 

Those  who  defend  the  liquor  traffic  claim  that  prohibi- 
tion deprives  men  of  getting  what  they  want — that  citi- 
zens who  desire  to  drink  are  not  able  to  do  so,  for  the  rea- 
son they  cannot  find  that  which  will  satisfy  their  longings. 
Thus,  according  to  their  claim,  prohibition  interferes  with 
the  freedom  of  action  and  choice  of  the  individual.  In 
the  next  breath  they  set  up  the  claim  that  prohibition  is  a 
failure,  that  instead  of  resulting  in  decreased  consump- 
tion of  drink  more  liquor  is  consumed  in  prohibition  towns, 

[129] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

counties  and  States  than  in  corresponding  communities 
where  liquor  is  sold. 

If  this  be  true,  the  citizen  who  lives  in  a  prohibition 
community  has  more  liberty  than  one  who  lives  in  a  com- 
munity where  there  is  an  open  saloon. 

If  more  liquor  is  handled  and  used  where  there  is  pro- 
hibition, those  who  wish  to  drink  it,  instead  of  finding 
their  liberty  abridged,  discover  that  drink  is  easier  to  get 
than  where  the  open  saloon  predominates. 

Of  course,  these  two  positions  taken  by  liquor  advocates 
are  flatly  contradictory.  If  one  is  true,  the  other  cannot 
be  so. 

We  might  go  on  through  the  list  of  objections  which 
are  offered,  but  why  do  so?  They  are  not  made  in  the 
hope  of  throwing  light  on  the  question,  but  rather  to  con- 
fuse the  minds  of  the  people,  and  are  failing  of  their  pur- 
pose. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  saloon  sympa- 
thizers, county  after  county,  State  after  State,  are  joining 
the  dry  column. 

My  prophecy  is  a  true  one.  In  State  and  in  Nation  the 
liquor  traffic  is  to  die,  and  is  to  die  soon. 


130] 


ELLA  SEASS  STEWART 


MRS.  ELLA  SEASS  STEWART  is  a  native  of  Moul- 
trie County,  Illinois.  Her  father,  Levi  Seass,  and  her 
mother  still  live  in  the  township  in  that  county  where 
he  was  born.  Her  paternal  grandfather,  Jacob  Seass,  was  one 
of  the  early  settlers  in  the  same  county.  Her  maternal  grand- 
father. Nelson  Powell,  was  a  soldier  in  the  Civil  War,  and  one 
of  her  maternal  grandfathers  was  Bushrod  Henr)',  who  estab- 
lished more  Disciples'  churches  in  Illinois,  probably,  than 
any  other  pioneer  preacher  of  that  religious  body. 

Mrs.  Stewart  first  attended  school  at  Arthur,  Illinois. 
Later  she  was  a  student  in  the  High  School  at  Decatur, 
which  was  not  far  from  her  girlhood  home.  She  was  grad- 
uated from  Eureka  College,  at  Eureka,  Illinois,  taking  both 
the  classical  and  scientific  courses.  Later  she  attended 
the  University  of  Michigan,  and  was  graduated  from  that 
institution.  Scarcely  had  she  finished  her  school  work 
until  she  began  doing  pubHc  work  for  the  temperance  and 
prohibition  reform,  and  on  behalf  of  woman  suflfrage,  and 
she  has  remained  a  consistent  advocate  of  both  these 
causes.  She  and  her  husband,  Oliver  W.  Stewart,  were 
classmates  at  Eureka,  and  have  been  fellow-laborers  in 
the  many  causes  and  organizations  in  which  both  believe. 
For  many  years  she  has  been  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees  of  Eureka  College. 

Since  removing  to  Chicago,  Mrs.  Stewart  has  taken  an 
active  interest  in  club  life  and  work,  and  during  her  resi- 
dence in  that  city  she  has  served  as  Vice-President  of  the 
State  W.  C.  T.  U.  and  President  of  the  Illinois  Equal  Suf- 
frage Association.  This  latter  position  Mrs.  Stewart  held 
until  a  short  time  before  the  enactment  of  the  woman  suf- 
frage law  by  the  legislature  of  Illinois.  She  has  served 
also  as  Secretary  of  the  National  Equal  Suffrage  Associa- 
tion, and  has  spoken  in  almost  every  State  in  the  Union. 

She  visited  forty  States  with  the  Flying  Squadron  dur- 
ing its  campaign,  and  spoke  whenever  called  upon,  filHng 
the  places  of  absent  speakers  in  all  three  groups. 

[133] 


THE  LIGHT  FROM  THE  HEARTHSTONE. 

A  FEW  months  since  there  was  issued  in  Washington  a 
most  interesting  document — one  which  will  have  an 
honored  place  in  the  museums  of  the  fitture  and  which 
will  be  treasured  by  historians  as  the  landmark  of  a  new  gov- 
ernmental era. 

This  document  was  a  bulletin  issued  by  the  great  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  on  the  Birth  of  a  Baby. 

Its  significance,  as  some  one  pertinently  remarked,  is  in 
the  fact  that  the  National  Government  has  arranged  here- 
after to  underwrite  child  rearing. 

When  the  organized  women  of  the  land,  after  years  of 
work  and  disappointment,  finally  secured  from  a  reluctant 
Congress  the  votes  necessary  to  establish  the  Children's 
Bureau,  and  when,  later,  the  President  appointed  as  the 
head  of  this  new  department  Miss  Julia  Lathrop,  one  of 
the  great  women  of  Illinois,  perhaps  neither  Congress  nor 
the  President  realized  that  the  womanhood  of  the  Nation 
had  at  last  planted  its  foot  in  the  crack  of  the  govern- 
mental door,  and  that  gradually  it  would  have  to  open 
wide  enough  to  admit  her  whole  body. 

I'm  going  to  risk  a  prophecy  that  this  humble,  harmless, 
despised  little  Children's  Bureau  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  is  the  thin  edge  of  the  wedge  which  eventu- 
ally will  bring  national  woman  suffrage  and  national  pro- 
hibition, and  it  will  produce  other  great  governmental 
changes. 

The  idea  that  the  child  is  the  greatest  national  asset 
will  modify  the  ideals  of  the  Nation,  as  it  has  led  to  larger 
vision  the  great  body  of  women  who  sponsored  and  finally 
succeeded  in  establishing  this  department  of  government. 
I  propose  to  use  my  time  on  this  program  in  discussing  the 
phase   of   the   drink   question   which    appeals    most   strongly 

[135] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  women.  For  I  will  confess  that  there  is  one  phase  of 
supreme  importance  to  women  as  women. 

A  short  time  ago  a  group  of  men  representing  great 
business  interests  met  in  Chicago  and  discussed  the  saloon 
as  a  foe  to  business.  One  of  the  speakers  said:  "Let  us 
leave  the  moral  side  of  this  question  to  the  women  and 
the  preachers.  We  are  interested  in  the  business  and 
economic  phases  of  the  problem." 

For  the  moment  I  felt  hurt — not  so  much  at  the  old  and 
rather  contemptuous  classification  of  "women  and  preach- 
ers," but  it  was  the  implication  that  women  (and  preach- 
ers) can  evaluate  the  evils  of  drink  and  the  liquor  traffic 
only  through  the  emotions.  It  was  the  mistaken  notion 
that  women  can  approach  the  discussion  only  from  the 
personal  side. 

Business?  Turn  to  the  tax  books  of  every  State  and 
behold  how  great  a  percentage  of  the  public  funds  comes 
from  the  pockets  of  women  taxpayers !  And  remember, 
Mr.  Dry  Taxpayer,  that  much  of  the  money  that  goes  to 
feed  saloon  jail-birds  in  every  county  and  to  support  in 
penitentiaries  and  asylums  the  products  of  the  saloon,  the 
money  that  pays  the  cost  of  police  courts  and  guards  for 
saloon  criminals,  is  money  wrested  from  citizens  who  have 
been  consulted  neither  about  the  tax  levy  nor  about  the 
saloon  which,  like  a  vampire,  not  only  sucks  the  Nation's 
wealth,  but  destroys  its  moral  fibre ! 

I  wish  that  there  might  have  been  unrolled  the  lists  of 
women  stockholders  in  railroads  and  other  corporations 
whose  net  earning  power  depends  so  much  upon  sober  and 
efficient  workmen. 

Women  are  as  much  interested  in  business  as  men — 
both  directly  and  indirectly.  Whether  they  are  stock- 
holders or  wives  and  daughters  of  men  whose  business 
suffers  from  incompetent  and  alcohol-logged  workmen, 
or  the  wives  and  daughters  of  men  injured  in  industry,  or 

[136] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

of  those  whose  earning  power  is  lessened  through  drink, 
women  can  count  the  cost  of  alcohol  in  dollars  and  cents. 

We  have  studied  arithmetic — all  of  us — and  thousands 
of  us  have  studied  higher  mathematics.  But  one  needs 
only  the  most  elemental  education  to  appreciate,  for  in- 
stance, the  report  of  a  commission  recently  appointed  by 
the  legislature  of  Massachusetts  to  investigate  drunk- 
enness. 

After  giving  statistics  of  arrests  for  drunkenness  that 
are  appalling,  the  report  says :  "Four  out  of  every  five 
men  so  imprisoned  were  between  the  ages  of  seventeen 
and  fifty,  and  therefore  at  the  very  period  in  life  when 
their  industrial  output  should  be  largest."  These  men, 
according  to  the  report,  at  the  very  prime  of  life,  lost  over 
three  hundred  thousand  working  days  (in  one  year  and  in 
one  State),  and  probably  an  equal  amount  of  time  was  lost 
in  hunting  work  after  release  from  prison.  That  means 
six  hundred  thousand  lost  days.  A  fair  estimate  of  the 
lost  wages  is  two  dollars  a  day.  That  means,  according 
to  our  woman's  arithmetic,  that  the  licensed  drink  cost  the 
laboring  man  of  the  single  State  of  Massachusetts  the 
amazing  sum  of  one  million  two  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars, besides  what  he  actually  spent  for  the  liquor,  and 
besides  what  other  laboring  men  spent  who  did  not  get  to 
jail. 

Now,  this  is  not  the  snap  judgment  of  women  and 
preachers,  but  from  the  official  report  of  a  commission 
appointed  by  a  state  legislature. 

We  might  also  remind  business  men  that  women  are 
the  distributors  of  the  family  income.  The  bulk  of  the 
consumption  of  the  world's  wealth  centers  in  the  home. 
Sixty  per  cent,  of  the  working  men  live  on  forty  dollars  a 
month.  The  mother  has  the  problem  of  making  this  pitiful 
wage  cover  food,  clothing  and  shelter. 

A    member    of    the    Illinois    Legislature    asked    me    last 

[137] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

spring,  after  our  women  down  State  had  helped  gloriously 
to  vote  out  eleven  hundred  saloons,  what  I  thought  the 
result  would  be  if  the  question  were  submitted  in  Chicago. 
I  thought  I  would  be  very  conservative.  I  said :  "It  would 
not  carry  the  first  time,  but  I  should  like  to  see  it  submit- 
ted, for  the  educational  value  of  the  campaign."  I  men- 
tioned our  great  foreign  population,  speaking  forty-seven 
languages,  only  one-fourth  of  us  being  native.  "Well,"  he 
said,  "I'm  not  so  sure  that  the  result  wouldn't  be  the  same 
as  down  state,  now  that  the  women  can  vote  on  the  ques- 
tion, for  I've  figured  it  out  this  way:  The  average  wage 
in  Chicago  is  not  over  fifteen  dollars  a  week.  The  mother 
has  to  make  that  fifteen  dollars  pay  for  the  rent,  the  milk, 
the  groceries,  the  heat  and  light,  the  clothes  and  school 
books.  She  may  wish  money  for  the  dentist  and  doctor 
and  for  all  sorts  of  things  needed  and  desired  by  the  family. 
If  her  husband  is  just  a  moderate  drinker  he  will  pay  two 
dollars  a  week  for  liquor.  I  don't  care  what  country  that 
woman  was  born  in,  when  she  faces  that  mathematical 
problem  in  the  quiet  of  that  secret  polling  booth  she  is 
very  likely  to  vote  that  two  dollars  into  the  family  treas- 
ury instead  of  the  saloon  keeper's  strong-box." 

Perhaps  this  isn't  pure  mathematics  after  all.  It  may  get 
around  to  the  emotional  and  personal  equation,  and  so  I 
will  accept  the  role  assigned  me  by  the  business  men,  and 
am  going  to  "make  my  argument  from  the  moral  stand- 
point and  by  the  light  that  shines  from  the  hearthstone. 

But  I  want  you  to  remember  that  women  today  can 
compute  all  the  mathematical  problems  connected  with 
the  legalized  saloon ;  as  scientists  they  can  perform  the 
experiments  which  prove  the  poisonous  character  of  alco- 
hol;  as  trained  statisticians  they  can  compile  the  tables 
which  show  the  connection  of  alcohol  with  crime,  degen- 
eracy and  poverty.  From  the  operating  table  and  hospital 
wards  they  can  trace  the  contributions  of  alcohol  to  the 

[138] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

corroding  diseases  of  vice;  as  the  predominating  factors 
in  charitable  organizations  they  can  add  the  testimony  of 
sociologists,  and  as  factors  in  government,  active  or  poten- 
tial, they  can  observe  the  baneful  political  encroachments 
of  the  saloon. 

In  all  these  aspects  of  the  problem  men  and  women  see 
alike,  or  may  at  least  learn  to  see  alike. 

But  there  is  a  reason  w^hy  women  should  hate  the  saloon 
beyond  the  hatred  of  men  for  it,  and  that  is  because,  in 
nature,  they  are  Mothers.  And,  being  Mothers,  actual  or 
potential,  human  life  is  the  most  valuable  thing  in  the 
world  to  them. 

The  reason  why  humanity  is  staggering  under  this  bur- 
den of  drink  today  is  that  we  have  been  living,  up  to  the 
present,  in  a  man-made  world.  Men  have  had  the  power 
to  protect  in  law  and  custom  the  vices  they  love.  Men 
have  also  idolized  and  protected  property.  On  account  of 
the  division  of  labor  which  men  have  assigned  themselves 
in  this  world  men  have  learned  to  think  in  terms  of  prop- 
erty. On  account  of  their  traditional  duties  and  experi- 
ences, women  think  in  terms  of  life. 

Now,  I  do  not  blame  men  alone  for  this  sad  state  in 
which  we  find  ourselves.  Women  have  been  too  passive. 
They  have  too  meekly  played  the  part  assigned — of  weep- 
ing and  enduring.  They  have  not  used  to  its  full  power 
their  indirect  influence,  and  when  armed  with  the  vote  they 
have  not  yet  exerted  their  whole  strength. 

Too  many  women  have  been  selfish  and  indifferent,  and 
too  many  have  reasoned  that  the  saloon  question  is  a  gov- 
ernmental question  and,  therefore,  a  man's  question,  out- 
side the  realm  of  women's  activity. 

Both  men  and  women  have  been  guilty,  and  the  race 
has  paid  the  penalty.  The  main  thing  now  is  for  both  men 
and  women  to  solve  this  problem  together,  supplementing 

[139] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

each  other's  intelligence  and  ideals,  and  working  out  a 
better  social  order. 

This  fundamental  difference  in  the  point  of  view  of  men 
and  women  has  been  brought  out  many  times  during  the 
years  the  club  women  were  working  for  the  National 
Child  Bureau,  and  in  state  legislatures  where  women 
have  been  working  for  the  adoption  of  child  welfare 
measures. 

Each  Congress  has  appropriated  large  sums  to  the  Bu- 
reau of  Plant  and  Animal  Industry,  to  encourage  the  study 
of  the  scientific  culture  of  pigs  and  sheep,  to  eradicate  hog 
cholera,  beetles,  scales,  chinch  bugs,  ticks,  moths  and 
locusts ;  but  it  started  the  Child  Bureau  off  with  a  pitiful 
appropriation  of  thirty  thousand  dollars,  and  the  next  year 
even  tried  to  cut  that  off. 

But  the  mother-spirit  of  our  Nation  is  now  awake  and  is 
demanding  to  know  by  accurate  vital  statistics  if  it  is  true 
that  three  hundred  thousand  babies  die  annually  in  their 
first  year.  And  why?  Is  it  heredity?  Bad  housing?  Un- 
clean air?  Is  it  because  the  mothers  are  in  industry?  If 
so,  why  are  they  there?    How  many  are  deserted  wives? 

When  the  causes  of  infant  mortality  are  ferreted  out  by 
Miss  Lathrop  and  her  assistants  in  the  National  Child 
Bureau,  Alcohol  will  have  to  come  into  court. 

Then  comes  Child  Labor.  Why  are  there  nearly  two 
million  children  toiling  for  gain  today  in  sweat-shops, 
mills,  stores,  factories  and  cotton  fields  who  ought  to  be 
in  school  or  at  play?  Robbed  of  their  childhood,  stunted 
in  mind  and  body,  they  die  in  swarms ;  they  become  nervous 
wrecks  and  are  thrown  upon  the  industrial  scrap  heap 
before  they  come  to  the  age  of  maturity.  Or,  later,  they 
fill  reformatories,  asylums  and  penitentiaries  because  they 
have  never  had  a  fair  chance  and  a  square  deal. 

We  ask  why  six  hundred  thousand  children  arc  illiterate. 
We  demand  that  the  Government  take  as  much  interest  in 

[140] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  Home,  and  war  as  energetically  against  its  enemies, 
as  it  has  been  warring  against  the  enemies  of  the  hen  coop 
and  the  pig  sty. 

And  when  the  Government  issues  its  bulletin  on  the 
American  Home  it  will  have  to  indict  the  legalized  saloon 
as  the  arch  enemy  of  the  Home.  That  is  why  I  prophesied 
that  this  harmless  little  Child  Bureau  would  be  the  entering 
wedge  for  National  Prohibition. 

An  ancient  prophet  preached :  "Build  ye  your  cities  for 
your  little  ones." 

If  the  city  builders,  from  the  days  when  nomadic  tribes 
began  to  settle  and  group  their  shacks  and  wigwams  for 
mutual  benefit  down  to  these  days  of  cities  that  fling  out 
their  hundreds  of  miles  of  concrete  and  stone  to  bound 
their  teeming  populations — if  all  city  builders  had  followed 
this  vision  of  the  prophet,  humanity  would  be  farther  on 
its  way  to  glory.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  would  seem 
that  the  average  city  had  been  builded  without  the  expec- 
tation that  a  child  were  ever  to  breathe  its  polluted  air,  to 
play  in  its  stony  and  treeless  streets,  to  stifle  in  its  sham- 
bles of  poverty,  to  be  defrauded  of  sunlight  by  its  sky- 
scrapers and  dark  tenements,  to  be  shocked  and  polluted 
by  its  greed,  by  its  brutality,  by  its  profanity  and  crime, 
to  be  scorched  by  its  red-light  district  and  trapped  by  its 
gambling  dens  and  saloons. 

I  am  glad  for  a  new  study  put  in  our  school  courses  on 
City  Planning.  I  am  glad  for  the  new  books  coming  to  our 
libraries  urging  the  building  or  making  over  of  cities  to 
provide  for  wide  and  clean  streets,  with  shade  and  flowers, 
for  landscape  gardening  applied  to  towns  and  cities,  for 
good  sewage  and  garbage  systems,  for  parks  and  play- 
grounds and  libraries  and  clean  air.  All  these  movements 
are  in  the  right  direction.  We  want  the  same  standards 
for  the  city,  on  the  side  of  cleanliness,  order  and  beauty, 

ri41] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that  we  have  for  the  individual  home — a  place  beautiful 
and  fit  to  receive  and  environ  a  new-born  soul. 

The  new  standards  of  our  city  home  which  are  being 
fostered  today  are  identical  with  the  standards  of  the 
individual  home.  On  the  physical  side,  comfort,  beauty, 
order,  cleanliness,  sanitation,  fresh  air.  A  good  house- 
keeper scorns  the  contrast  between  an  ornate  parlor  and 
a  cockroachy  kitchen  or  malodorous  basement.  She  repu- 
diates the  incongruity  of  a  grassy,  terraced  front  yard  and 
a  back  yard  full  of  tin  cans  and  refuse.  So  the  city  visioned 
by  the  prophet  is  not  the  city  with  fancy  boulevards  and 
filthy  alleys — a  so-called  residence  district  and  slum  dis- 
trict ;  churches  by  the  dozens  and  saloons  by  the  hundreds. 
What  is  a  city?  An  aggregation  of  homes,  and  the  child  is 
the  heart  of  the  home. 

So  the  chief  business  of  cities  is  to  clothe,  feed,  keep 
healthy,  educate,  give  joy  to  and  develop  to  worthy  man- 
hood and  womanhood  the  ever-renewed  fountain  of  life 
that  wells  up  within  it.  To  this  end  wheels  turn  and  shut- 
tles fly,  inventions  crystallize,  men  and  women  buy  and 
sell,  and  coin  their  muscle  and  brain  power.  "Build  ye 
your  cities  for  your  little  ones."  That  is  the  standard  we 
must  come  to.  No  institution  should  be  permitted  to  exist 
which  is  detrimental  to  childhood. 

Now,  the  first  great  and  fundamental  right  of  the  child 
is  to  good  parentage.  The  new  science  of  Eugenics  is 
coming  to  the  aid  of  Prohibition.  At  the  International 
Eugenic  Congress,  held  in  London  recently,  figures  were 
quoted  which  showed  that  out  of  three  thousand  two  hun- 
dred seventy-two  children  examined  who  were  afflicted 
with  hysteria,  epilepsy  or  idiocy  that  the  father  had  been  an 
excessive  drinker  in  one  thousand  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
six  cases,  the  mother  in  one  hundred,  and  in  fifty-three 
both  parents  were  drunkards.  Saleeby,  the  great  Eugenic 
scientist,   says   that   of   all   evils   at   work   to-day   against 

[142] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

parenthood,  and  therefore  against  the  child,  I  should  put 
alcohol  and  its  evil  effects  first.  He  said:  "To  the  many 
charges  against  alcohol  made  by  the  champions  of  life  in 
the  past,  let  it  be  added  that  it  is  the  most  potent  ally  of  the 
most  loathsome  diseases  that  afflict  mankind." 

Vice  and  drink  go  hand  in  hand.  A  few  years  ago  a  com- 
mission was  appointed  to  investigate  vice  conditions  in  the 
city  of  Chicago,  and  to  make  recommendations.  That 
report  is  the  most  scientific  document  that  has  ever  been 
presented  to  any  legislative  body.  Dean  Sumner  was  the 
chairman  of  that  commission.  He  has  said  repeatedly 
that  the  investigation  of  that  commission  opened  his  eyes 
to  the  evils  of  the  saloon,  and  this  representative  body  of 
investigators  reported  that  vice  could  never  be  stamped 
out  of  the  city  as  long  as  the  legalized  saloon  remains. 
They  are  Saimese  twins. 

Some  grim  devil  has  invented  the  fiction  that  the  sow- 
ing of  wild  oats  is  an  expected  pastime  of  young  men. 
Statistics  of  hospital  wards  and  institutions  for  defectives 
show  that  the  pitiful  harvest  of  that  sowing  is  reaped  by 
the  innocent  wives,  by  babies  blinded  or  with  rotten  bones 
and  spoiled  brains. 

A  girl  who  wishes  to  protect  her  own  safety  will  avoid 
alcohol  and  choose  for  her  children's  father  the  one  whose 
life  is  as  clean  as  her  own.  The  saloon  steals  the  birth- 
right of  childhood — the  right  to  health,  the  right  to  clean 
blood  and  clear  brains. 

The  second  right  of  a  child  is  to  a  home — not  an  institu- 
tion, not  just  a  place  to  stay,  but  a  real  home — to  human 
comforts  and  to  love.  The  saloon  gets  that  which  should 
be  spent  for  necessities.  The  children's  milk  is  cut  off 
before  the  father's  drink,  while  love  and  respect  die  in  the 
drink-cursed  home.  It  becomes  degraded,  a  charnel  house 
of  dead  hopes  and  departed  purity. 

Judge    Gemmill,    while    judge    of    the    Chicago    Court    of 

[143] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Domestic  Relations,  voluntarily  published  a  report  stating 
that  of  the  homes  broken  up,  the  wreckage  of  which  was 
cast  up  in  his  Court,  forty-two  per  cent,  was  caused  by 
drink.  There  are  four  thousand  wife  desertions  reported 
annually  to  our  Chicago  Bureau  of  Charities.  Drink  is  the 
principal  cause.  The  families  become  wholly  or  semi- 
pauperized.  Mothers,  who  must  add  the  duty  of  bread- 
winner, go  to  work  in  factories  or  at  the  wash  tub.  The 
children  are  under-nourished.  The  older  ones  run  the 
streets,  where  a  careless  community  permits  a  bewildering 
maze  of  perils  to  childhood.  Later  they  turn  up  in  the 
juvenile  court  and  fill  reformatories.  A  volume  of  eight 
hundred  and  thirty  pages  has  just  been  printed  by  Dr. 
Healy,  of  the  Psychopathic  Institute  of  the  Juvenile  Court 
of  Chicago,  who  has  been  studying  the  causes  of  juvenile 
crime.  He  has  made  a  careful  study  of  one  thousand  cases, 
and,  as  might  be  expected.  Dr.  Healy  adds  his  testimony 
to  that  of  other  scientists  as  to  the  evil  effects  of  alcohol 
on  the  social  and  individual  life.  He  says :  *Tf  we  could 
with  one  blow  do  away  with  the  use  of  alcohol,  the  num- 
ber of  annual  convictions  would  be  reduced  by  one-fifth." 

Then,  again,  the  city  that  is  built  for  little  ones  should 
have  safe  streets. 

The  time  has  passed  when  children  can  be  kept  in  the 
house  with  mother — out  of  harm's  way.  There  was  a  time 
when  all  the  women  and  all  the  children  stayed  at  home. 
That  was  the  pioneer  home  of  our  ancestors — that  home 
that  was  at  the  same  time  home,  factory  and  school.  Most 
of  the  schooling  that  the  children  got  was  what  they 
received  from  their  mother  or  the  itinerant  tutor,  and  they 
were  about  her  knees  and  grew  to  helj)  her  as  she  spun, 
dyed,  wove  and  manufactured  cloth  into  garments,  as  she 
pickled  and  smoked  the  meat,  quilted,  canned,  made  soap 
and  performed  all  the  industries  necessary  to  feed  and 
clothe  the  body. 

[144] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Two  great  changes  in  civilization  broke  up  that  com- 
bination. First,  the  industrial  change — for  with  the  inven- 
tion of  labor-saving  machinery  those  ancient  spinning 
wheels  and  looms  changed  to  the  great  cotton  and  woolen 
mills  of  today,  the  soap  barrels  went  to  the  soap  factory, 
the  family  oven  became  the  steam  bakery  and  millions  of 
women  had  to  follow  these  machines  to  the  factory  to 
earn  their  children's  bread. 

Then,  at  about  the  same  time,  the  State  began  to  claim 
the  children  for  education.  So,  after  the  baby  is  six,  the 
mother  can  no  longer  shelter  it  at  home.  It  must  go  out 
on  the  street — to  school.  It  must  begin  to  take  its  part  in 
the  social  order.  Oh,  those  streets  through  which  your 
tender,  innocent  baby's  feet  have  to  be  set !  If  the  rough 
cobble  stones  and  the  disease-breeding'  refuse  and  the 
dangerous  crossings  were  the  only  perils  on  those  streets, 
built  almost  entirely,  up  to  the  present  time,  by  the  fathers 
of  little  children !  But,  alas !  If  many  of  these  little  ones 
had  met  their  death  only  by  street  cars  and  automobiles 
and  trains  and  by  smoke  and  dirt,  the  grief  would  not  have 
made  lines  so  deep  and  plaintive  in  helpless  mothers'  faces. 
But  the  traps  that  caught  their  feet,  and  the  manholes  that 
swallowed  them  up,  and  the  cesspools  that  strangled  them, 
have  been  the  immoral  influences  set  free  on  those  streets 
and  even  fostered  by  the  voting  community — saloons  and 
gambling  dens  and  brothels  and  a  thousand  minor  influ- 
ences for  evil  that  help  to  nullify  the  pure  influence  of  the 
home  and  of  the  mother. 

In  my  city  there  are  thousands  of  homes  that  are  tene- 
ments of  two  and  three  rooms,  so  overcrowded  with  fan«- 
ily  and  necessary  boarders  that  the  children  must  go  to  thir 
streets  to  play  and  the  adolescents  to  the  movies  and  danc^ 
halls,  or  the  sidewalks,  for  the  recreation  which  youth 
craves  and  should  have.  What  will  future  generations 
think   of   an   organized  body   of   adults — most   of   them   pa- 

[145] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

rents — setting  these  traps  for  the  innocent  and  unwary, 
for  just  those  human  beings  who  should  be  the  chief  object 
of  the  city's  soUcitude — the  boys  and  girls  of  today? 

I  wonder  how  any  mother  can  resist  the  call  to  service 
in  these  great  movements  for  home  protection!  For  if 
men  hate  the  saloon  today  because  it  is  the  foe  of  busi- 
ness, a  dead  weight  on  industry,  the  antithesis  of  civiliza- 
tion, a  social  excrescence  and  the  shame  of  government, 
every  woman  should  hate  the  saloon  for  every  known  rea- 
son that  man  does — and  one  in  addition  which  overshadows 
all  the  others  added  together,  and  that  reason  is  that  the 
saloon  mocks  their  sacrifice  and  nullifies  their  supreme 
contribution  to  the  world — human  life. 

No  sensible  woman  today  says,  "My  house  is  my  home." 
She  knows  that  the  city  is  her  home,  and  the  county  and 
State.  She  cannot  have  a  safe  individual  home  if  the  city 
is  unsafe.  So  she  must  seek  to  extend  the  pure  influences 
of  her  home  into  the  community  life.  She  knows  that 
there  are  hundreds  of  things  outside  the  four  square  walls 
of  her  home  which  make  for  its  peace  and  happiness  or  for 
its  failure  and  degradation.  And  every  woman  must  learn 
to  value  all  flesh  by  the  price  she  has  paid  for  her  own  chil- 
dren, and  remove  the  stumbling  blocks  from  the  paths  of 
every  woman's  child.  So  she  will  learn  to  fight  this  racial 
foe  as  she  would  fight  war  and  pestilence. 

No  one  has  better  expressed  the  mother  love  which  is 
to  become  universally  potent  in  the  solution  of  these  prob- 
lems than  has  Olive  Schreiner  in  a  discussion  on  Woman 
and  War,  and  the  high  and  noble  reason  that  she  gives  for 
woman's  hatred  of  war  is  just  the  reason  why  every  good 
woman  hates  the  saloon.    She  says  : 

"Men  have  made  boomerangs,  bows,  swords  or  guns 
with  which  to  destroy  one  another ;  we  have  made  the  men 
who  destroyed  and  were  destroyed.  We  have  in  all  ages 
produced  at  an  enormous  cost  the  primal  munition  of  war, 

[146] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

without  which  no  other  would  exist.  There  is  no  battle- 
field on  earth,  howsoever  covered  with  slain,  which  it  has 
not  cost  the  women  of  the  race  more  in  actual  bloodshed 
and  anguish  to  supply  than  it  has  cost  the  men  who  lie 
there.    We  pay  the  first  cost  on  all  human  life. 

"There  is,  perhaps,  no  woman,  whether  she  has  borne 
children  or  be  merely  potentially  a  child-bearer,  who  could 
look  down  upon  a  battlefield  covered  with  slain  but  the 
thought  would  rise  in  her,  'So  many  mothers'  sons !  So 
many  bodies  brought  into  the  world  to  lie  there !  So  many 
months  of  weariness  and  pain  while  bones  and  muscles 
were  shaped  within !  So  many  hours  of  anguish  and  strug- 
gle that  breath  might  be !  So  many  baby  mouths  drawing 
life  at  woman's  breasts — all  this,  that  men  might  lie  with 
glazed  eyeballs,  and  swollen  faces,  and  fixed,  blue,  unclosed 
mouths,  and  great  limbs  tossed  thus ;  that  an  acre  of 
ground  might  be  manured  with  human  flesh ;  that  next 
year's  grass  or  poppies  may  spring  up  greener  and  redder 
where  they  have  lain,  or  that  the  sand  of  a  plain  may  have 
the  glint  of  w^hite  bones  !' 

"And  we  cry,  'Without  an  inexorable  cause,  this  must 
not  be !'  No  woman  who  is  a  woman  says  of  a  human 
body,  'It  is  nothing.' 

"On  that  day  when  the  woman  takes  her  place  beside 
the  man  in  governance  and  arrangement  of  external  affairs 
of  her  race  will  also  be  the  day  that  heralds  the  death  of 
war  as  a  means  of  arranging  human  differences.  And 
this  will  not  be  because  with  the  sexual  function  of  mater- 
nity goes  a  deeper  moral  insight  or  a  loftier  type  of  social 
instinct  than  that  which  accompanies  the  paternal.  Men 
have  in  all  ages  led  as  nobly  as  w^omen  in  many  paths  of 
heroic  virtue  and  toward  the  higher  social  sympathies ;  in 
certain  ages,  being  freer  and  more  widely  cultured,  they 
have  led  further  and  better. 

"It  is  not  because  of  her  superior  virtue  that  she  will 

[147] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

end  war  when  her  voice  is  fully  and  clearly  heard  in  the 
governance  of  states — it  is  because  on  this  one  point  the 
knowledge  of  woman  is  superior  to  that  of  man ;  she  knows 
the  history  of  human  flesh;  she  knows  its  cost;  he  does 
not. 

"In  a  besieged  city  it  might  well  happen  that  men  in  the 
streets  might  seize  upon  statues  and  marble  carvings  from 
public  buildings  and  galleries  and  hurl  them  in  to  stop  the 
breaches  made  in  their  ramparts  by  the  enemy,  merely 
because  they  came  first  to  hand,  not  valuing  them  more 
than  had  they  been  paving-stones.  One  man,  however, 
could  not  do  this — the  sculptor, 

"Men's  bodies  are  our  woman's  works  of  art.  Given  us 
the  power  to  control,  we  will  never  carelessly  throw  them 
in  to  fill  up  the  gaps  in  human  relationships  made  by  inter- 
national ambitions  and  greeds.  The  thought  would  never 
come  to  us  as  women,  'Cast  in  men's  bodies ;  settle  the 
thing  so.' 

"It  is  in  the  domain  of  war  that  we,  the  bearers  of  men's 
bodies,  who  supply  its  most  valuable  munition,  who,  not 
amid  the  clamor  and  ardor  of  battle,  but  singly  and  alone, 
with  a  three-in-the-morning  courage,  shed  our  blood  and 
face  death  that  the  battlefield  might  have  its  food ;  it  is 
we  who,  in  the  domain  of  war,  have  our  word  to  say,  a 
word  no  man  can  say  for  us.  It  is  our  intention  to  enter 
into  the  domain  of  war  and  to  labor  there  till,  in  the  course 
of  generations,  we  have  extinguished  it." 

So,  also,  will  women  war  against  alcohol,  the  great  race 
destroyer  and  despoiler. 

However  great  the  loss  to  the  sorrowful  mothers  of  sons 
now  lying  dead  on  European  battlefields,  they  will  be 
upheld  by  some  sense  of  the  necessity  for  it  or  sentiments 
of  patriotism  and  heroism.  Thousands  have  died  in  purity 
and  in  the  morning  of  noble  idealisms. 

But  what  recompense  is  there  to  the  mothers  of  those 

[148] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

mowed  down  by  the  law-protected  batteries  of  alcohol  as 
they  lie  in  pitiful  graves  with  their  distorted  features, 
rotted  brains  and  lost  souls  ? 

My  sisters,  is  there  a  cause  that  needs  you  more  than 
this — to  make  paths  safe  for  little  feet?  I  regret  that 
there  are  some  women  who  say,  "I  have  no  interest  in  this 
question  because  I  have  a  happy  home  and  a  good  husband 
and  strong  sons."  In  other  words,  "I  have  food,  clothing 
and  shelter  and  happiness,  so  why  should  I  worry  about 
those  who  have  not?  I'm  contented."  Contented — in  a 
world  crying  for  help — in  a  time  that  is  taxing  the  world's 
thinkers?  Satisfied — while  our  prisons  are  full  of  those 
who  are  shamed  by  preventable  crime?  Contented — while 
hospitals  are  full  of  preventable  suffering?  Contented — 
while  all  this  great  world's  work  remains  to  be  done? 
Cold,  self-centered,  unawakened.  Thank  God,  there  is  a 
vaster  number,  as  I  believe,  of  those  who  are  ready  to  lift 
their  share  of  this  load — who  are  willing  to  begin  building 
cities  for  the  little  ones,  who  would  dedicate  their  mother- 
hood to  the  larger  service  of  making  the  world  more  home- 
like. 


149] 


DANIEL  A.  POLING 


INHERENTLY  a  leader,  Daniel  A.  Poling  is  a  speaker  of 
commanding  eloquence  and  personal  force.  He  was  born 
in  Portland,  Oregon,  November  30,  1884.  Graduating 
from  Dallas  College  in  1904,  he  became  Traveling  Secretary 
of  the  Intercollegiate  Prohibition  Association  for  tv^o  years 
and  has  been  National  Vice-President  of  the  organization 
since. 

In  1908  he  became  the  leader  of  the  Ohio  Christian  En- 
deavor Union,  serving  as  General  Secretary  for  six  years.  He 
also  served  as  General  Secretary  of  Young  People's  Work 
of  the  United  Evangelical  Church  for  tw^o  years. 

In  addition  to  the  Vice-Presidency  of  the  Intercollegiate 
Prohibition  Association  he  is  at  the  present  time  General  Sec- 
retary of  the  Ohio  Christian  Endeavor  Union  and  member 
of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  American  Scientific  Tem- 
perance Federation;  a  member  of  the  Managing  Board  of 
Young  People's  Work,  United  Evangelical  Church ;  editor  of 
a  young  people's  paper;  President  of  the  American  Advance 
Publishing  Company ;  President's  Associate  and  National  Cit- 
izenship Superintendent  of  the  United  Society  of  Christian 
Endeavor,  and  President  of  the  National  Temperance  Council. 

There  is  probably  no  man  in  the  country  so  intensely  and 
universally  loved  and  respected  by  the  Christian  young  people 
as  Daniel  A.  Poling.  Big  in  heart  and  ideals,  in  love  with 
life,  gifted  with  rare  ability,  "on  fire  for  God  and  right,"  and 
able  to  stir  others  with  the  same  emotion,  himself  "every  inch 
a  man,"  he  has  gripped  the  hearts  of  thousands  of  young  and 
old  throughout  the  country  and  given  to  them  a  clearer  and 
bigger  vision  of  true  Christian  citizenship. 

A  practical  student  of  the  liquor  problem  and  a  fighter  of 
the  traffic,  he  knows  the  very  heart  of  the  anti-liquor  conflict 
and  struggles — legislative,  municipal  and  constitutional — and 
its  corrupting  hand  in  city  and  state. 

But  thirty  years  of  age,  the  American  continent  has  become 
his  parish.    He  has  traveled  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 

[153] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

miles,  delivered  four  thousand  and  seventy-five  addresses, 
and  has  spoken  to  more  than  four  millions  of  people  in  the 
United  States  and  in  the  Canadian  provinces. 

A  member  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Flying  Squad- 
ron, and  Secretary  thereof  from  the  hour  of  its  inception  to 
the  close  of  its  campaign,  he  bore  a  high  and  commanding 
part  in  the  great  work  it  wrought.  His  appeal  to  the  young 
people  of  the  Nation  will  have  a  profound  impress  upon  the 
lives  of  all  who  heard  him.  Great  as  his  labor  has  been,  his 
work  has  scarcely  yet  begun.  That  which  he  has  wrought  is 
but  the  preparation  for  the  ripe  years  that  stretch  beyond. 


[154] 


THE  CHALLENGE  OF  PATRIOTISM. 

AMERICA  faces  today  the  mightiest  domestic  and  for- 
eign problems  of  her  eventful  history.  Industrial  un- 
rest, the  extremes  of  individualism,  paternalism  and 
communism,  the  masterful  questions  of  our  great  cities,  the 
hunger  crisis,  the  grinding  of  racial  strata — the  problems  of 
these  and  of  others  beyond  numbering  seethe  in  the  cauldron 
of  domestic  unrest. 

Without,  the  world  rocks  in  an  abysmal  struggle  of  ele- 
mental hates.  Some  empires  and  kingdoms  will  fall,  all  will 
be  made  desolate,  robbed  of  treasure,  wasted  of  brain  and 
brawn.  And  when  the  clouds  of  war  finally  lift,  what  a  spec- 
tacle!  Europe  a  bleeding,  a  repellant  waste!  He  is  not  an 
idle  dreamer  who  says  that  when  Mars,  blood-gutted,  falls 
asleep  upon  the  plains  of  Flanders,  the  eyes  of  the  bondaged 
and  oppressed  will  turn  as  turns  the  morning  flower  toward 
the  sun — will  turn  as  turned  the  eyes  of  Israel  toward  the 
"Promised  Land" — toward  the  Republic  safely  set  upon  a  con- 
tinent between  the  mightiest  oceans  of  the  earth;  a  Republic 
in  herself  sufficient  for  every  hunger  of  mankind. 

It  is  as  plainly  written  as  the  decalogue  that  beneath  the 
flag  first  raised  by  Washington,  now  fixed  on  high,  by  a  united 
and  never-to-be-estranged  people,  shall  be  the  burning  out  of 
the  ancient  dross  of  despotism  in  the  white  fires  of  freedom — 
shall  be  the  melting  of  the  nations  and  the  welding  of  the  races. 

For  this  world  mission,  for  this  divine  destiny — to  heal  the 
war  sore  of  the  earth,  and  to  build  the  future  better  than  the 
past — America  needs  every  man  at  his  best. 

Men  and  women  as  citizens  are  the  product  of  four  environ- 
ments— the  physical,  the  moral,  the  industrial,  and  the  political. 

A  physical  incompetent,  by  superior  qualities  of  the  uncon- 
querable soul,  may  lift  himself  out  of  the  chains  of  disease 
and  pain  and  make  his  fellows  his  debtors.    But  no  man  will 

[155] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

deny  me  when  I  say  that  that  which  makes  for  physical  in- 
competency is  an  enemy  of  the  State. 

A  moral  incompetent  cannot  be  a  good  citizen. 

An  industrial  incompetent  cannot  be  a  good  citizen. 

A  political  incompetent  cannot  be  a  good  citizen. 

I  submit  to  you  that  the  liquor  institution  is  the  supreme 
tangible  foe  of  the  State,  because  it  is  the  supreme  positive 
promoter  of  physical,  moral,  industrial  and  political  incom- 
petency. The  call  of  the  temperance  and  prohibition  reform 
is  the  challenge  of  highest  patriotism. 

Millions  of  citizens,  men  and  women,  immediately  vital  to 
the  national  and  world  program  of  this  Republic,  cannot  be 
at  their  best  until  the  liquor  institution  is  destroyed.  Other 
and  unborn  millions  are  physically,  morally,  industrially  and 
politically  pre-damned  by  the  eugenic  taint  of  alcohol.  And 
America  needs  every  man  at  his  best! 

On  four  counts,  then — as  the  shackler  of  bodies,  as  the  de- 
spoiler  of  morals,  as  the  impoverisher  of  industry,  and  as  the 
corrupter  of  government — I  indict  the  liquor  institution  and 
arraign  it  in  the  high  court  of  patriotism.  On  the  accumulated 
and  unimpeachable  testimony  of  the  centuries  I  demand  the 
verdict  of  guilty  with  no  recommendation  of  mercy.  In  the 
name  of  the  dead,  the  living,  and  the  unborn,  I  ask  for  the 
maximum  sentence,  State-wide,  Nation-wide,  World-wide  Pro- 
hibition ! 

What  is  alcohol?  Its  friends  say  that  it  is  a  stimulant  and  a 
liquid  food.  We  submit  that  alcohol  is  the  greatest  physical 
menace  of  the  race. 

Modern  science  declares  that  it  has  yet  to  be  proved  that 
the  heart  muscle  can  be  stimulated  by  alcohol ;  that  alcohol 
is  a  narcotic,  water-absorbing,  anesthetic  drug — a  poison.  It 
must  be  classed  with  opium,  cocaine,  morphine  and  other 
appetite- forming  drugs.  It  cannot  be  taken  into  the  human 
system  with  any  degree  of  frequency  without  deterioration  to 
the  human  tissue,  and  it  affects  maliciously  all  cell  life.     One 

[156] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

drink  of  intoxicating  liquor  disturbs  the  disease-germ-destroy- 
ing white  blood  cells  of  the  body — until  they  stagger.  With 
the  germs  of  typhoid  striking  in  on  the  bowels,  with  tubercu- 
losis germs  striking  in  on  the  lungs,  the  sluggish,  impover- 
ished white  corpuscles  of  the  drinker's  blood  are  insufficient 
for  their  task  and  fail  in  the  hour  of  physical  crisis.  Thus 
it  is  that  pneumonia  has  a  death  mortgage  on  the  drunkard! 
Thus  it  is  that  the  so-called  moderate  drinker  has  but  one 
chance  in  two  for  recovery  from  disease  and  for  long  life, 
as  compared  with  the  total  abstainer. 

Plants  watered  with  alcohol  languish  and  die.  A  guinea 
pig  from  a  vigorous  litter  fed  upon  alcoholized  food,  if  it  lives 
at  all,  is  stunted  and  inferior.  Should  it  propagate,  its  de- 
scendants are  invariably  sickly  and  short-lived. 

In  infant  mortality,  Bavaria,  the  greatest  beer-drinking  prin- 
cipality on  the  globe,  leads  the  world.  The  French  govern- 
ment, in  scientific  campaigns  against  its  declining  birth  rate, 
discovered  and  officially  reported  that  the  birth  rate  was  low- 
est in  those  divisions  of  the  Republic  where  the  per  capita 
consumption  of  light  wine  was  the  highest. 

Science  has  demonstrated,  first  in  the  laboratories  of  Ger- 
many and  later  in  the  university  and  private  laboratories  of 
our  own  country,  that  one  dram  of  alcohol,  the  equivalent 
of  one  drink  of  whisky,  may  so  affect  the  eye  that  the  power 
to  distinguish  color  is  lost,  the  ability  to  distinguish  reds  being 
first  destroyed.  One  drink  of  whisky  taken  by  an  engineer 
before  going  out  on  his  run  may  plunge  a  train  into  an  open 
switch!  And  engineers  have  testified  truthfully  that  they 
saw  no  red  light  when  it  was  conclusively  proven  that  it  was 
set  against  them. 

There  is  abroad  in  the  land  a  modern  fallacy  that  beer 
drinking  and  the  drinking  of  milder  liquors  generally  should 
be  less  seriously  regarded  than  the  consumption  of  the  distilled 
and  more  violent  intoxicants.  Fallacy,  I  say,  for  the  fact  that 
the  immediate  effects  of  the  lighter  drinks  are  less  radical  on 

[157] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

body  and  mind  invites  larger  consumption,  "guzzling."  The 
continuous  debauch  takes  the  place  of  the  periodical  sprees, 
and  all  the  while  an  appetite  is  being  strengthened  that  eventu- 
ally the  most  violent  beverage  will  not  satisfy.  I  am  per- 
suaded that  beer  drinking  in  the  United  States  is  even  a 
greater  menace  than  whisky  drinking — in  the  final  reckoning 
there  will  be  no  distinction  made. 

Emerson  said:  "Anything  that  is  against  nature  will  be 
destroyed."  Alcohol  as  a  beverage,  alcohol  as  an  internal 
medicine,  is  against  nature  and  will  be  destroyed. 

Prohibition  is  patriotic  because  Prohibition  is  a  scientific 
movement  against  physical  incompetency. 

The  liquor  institution  is  the  despoiler  of  morals.  Morality  is 
a  composite  of  religion  and  education.  There  can  be  no  moral- 
ity without  religion  and  the  only  effective  morality  is  an  edu- 
cated, positive  morality.     Morality  is  militant. 

The  home,  the  school  and  the  church  constitute  civilization's 
great  moral  triangle.  The  liquor  institution  is  either  the  friend 
of  the  home,  the  school,  and  the  church,  or  it  is  the  enemy 
of  these. 

The  saloon  does  not  make  fathers  and  mothers  more  affec- 
tionate, but  it  does  rob  hundreds  of  thousands  of  children 
of  sober  parents;  it  does  brand  a  million  helpless  babies  with 
the  name,  "a  drunkard's  child."  Liquor  does  not  put  pictures 
on  the  wall  or  put  bread  and  meat  in  the  larder,  but  it  does 
create  at  least  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  child  laborers 
by  impairing  or  cutting  off  entirely  the  earning  power  of  the 
natural  provider.  The  fact  that  a  father  has  lost  his  job 
through  drink  does  not  signify  that  his  children  have  lost  their 
appetite. 

The  liquor  institution  does  not  make  child  rearing  easier, 
motherhood  happier,  but  it  does  fill  sweatshops  with  mothers 
who  with  bleeding  fingers  toil  for  bread,  and  it  does  make 
pensions  for  mothers  imperative  in  every  State  of  the  Union. 

The  liquor  institution  educates  no  children  but  the  children 

[158] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

of  the  liquor  dealer,  but  it  does  close  the  door  of  the  public 
school  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  boys  and  girls,  and  for 
other  thousands  it  bars  the  road  to  higher  education. 

Prohibition  Kansas  had  last  year,  in  proportion  to  popula- 
tion, more  high  school  graduates  and  more  young  men  and 
women  in  colleges  and  universities  than  any  other  State  of 
the  Union,  than  any  other  country  of  the  world! 

The  liquor  institution  has  never  conducted  a  revival  meet- 
ing, but  it  has  damned  a  billion  souls,  for  "no  drunkard  shall 
inherit  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

The  liquor  institution  has  never  raised  a  family  altar,  and 
no  prayers  have  even  been  offered  for  God  to  make  more 
saloons  and  more  saloon  keepers,  more  drunkards  and  drunk- 
ards' wives  and  drunkards'  children,  but  prayers  as  number- 
less as  the  sands  of  the  seashore  have  risen  to  the  Throne  that 
the  drunkard  shop  be  closed  forever.  And  they  will  continue 
to  rise  until  the  prayer-answering  God,  through  the  holy  bal- 
lots of  His  people,  makes  final  reply. 

The  liquor  institution  robs  men  of  the  power  to  distinguish 
between  right  and  wrong.  It  excites  and  maddens  the  passions. 
Thus  it  becomes  the  real  principle  in  unnumbered  acts  of 
violence  for  which  men  languish  in  prison,  die  by  the  hang- 
man's noose  or  in  the  electric  chair. 

The  liquor  institution  robs  men  of  reason,  perverts  judg- 
ment, and  weakens  the  will.  Thus  it  levies  an  unspeakable 
tribute  upon  the  master  passion  of  the  race,  and  gives  to  the 
trafficker  in  women  and  girls  his  chief  weapon.  It  is  the  big 
brother  of  the  brothel,  and  when  daughters  are  seduced  and 
ruined,  alcohol  is  generally  partner  to  the  crime.  Scarcely 
ever  is  there  a  rape  fiend  without  a  bottle.  Jane  Addams 
endorses  the  statement  that  the  white  slave  traffic  as  an  mstitu- 
tion  could  not  exist  for  ten  days  in  this  country  without  the 
liquor  traffic. 

The  liquor  institution  makes  men  and  women  morally  unfit, 
and  thus  undermines  the  whole  social  order.     It  blunts  first 

[159] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  finer  instincts,  even  as  it  first  destroys  the  more  delicate 
and  last  formed  cells  of  the  body.  It  robs  society  not  gener- 
ally of  the  baser,  but  more  frequently  of  the  best. 

Men  who  ruled  empires  and  the  world  have  fallen  before 
their  drink  appetite — Alexander  died  in  a  drunken  debauch  at 
thirty-three. 

Many  brave  souls  who  opened  the  road  of  freedom  for 
others  have  not  been  able  to  break  for  themselves  the  alcohol 
bondage. 

The  liquor  institution  is  the  enemy  of  the  home,  the  enemy 
of  the  school,  and  the  arch  foe  of  the  church.  It  is  the  moral 
crime  of  the  centuries,  and  Prohibition  is  patriotic  because  it 
will  destroy  this  great  moral  despoiler. 

The  economic  stability  of  the  State  is  in  the  hand  of  toil, 
and  the  liquor  institution  is  the  impoverisher  of  industry.  It 
impairs  the  working  efficiency  of  labor;  it  decreases  the  pur- 
chasing power  of  the  American  home  to  the  extent  of  at  least 
seventy  per  cent,  of  the  more  than  two-billion-dollar  annual 
drink  bill  of  the  United  States.  It  robs  labor  directly  of  a 
large  proportion  of  his  just  share  in  industrial  profits,  for  it 
gives  to  labor  less  than  ninety  dollars  of  every  one  million 
dollars  of  capital  invested,  while  the  average  for  all  other 
industries  is  five  hundred  dollars  for  every  one  million  dollars 
of  capital  invested.  It  makes  for  cheap  labor,  for  it  is  respon- 
sible for  thousands  of  women  who  stand  in  the  burden-bearing 
places  of  men,  and  it  is  the  begetter  of  child  slavery. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  an  unfair  business  competitor,  for  it 
deals  with  a  habit- forming  drug  that  drives  its  victims  to 
spend  all  of  their  substance  for  that  which  satisfies  not,  for 
that  which  leaves  the  consumer  in  an  infinitely  worse  state 
than  he  was  before.     It  impoverishes  society. 

The  liquor  institution  is  the  recipient  of  unfair  and  exorbi- 
tant profits  and  all  of  its  financial  returns  arc  at  the  expense 
of  the  legitimate  industries  of  the  community.  Liquor  money 
is  generally  bread  money,  shoe  money,  and  money  that  ought 

[160] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  be  spent  for  clothing,  money  that  would  naturally  have  gone 
to  buy  the  necessities  and  comforts  of  life. 

Release  the  drink  bill  of  the  United  States,  and  it  will 
immediately  begin  to  do  three  things — to  supply  the  saloon's 
victims  with  the  necessities  and  comforts  of  life,  to  upbuild 
and  strengthen  the  honest  industries  that  create  for  society 
necessities  and  comforts,  and  to  return  to  the  laborer  a  larger 
share  of  the  earnings  of  his  toil. 

The  liquor  institution  is  the  father  of  two-thirds  of  the 
unpaid  bills  that  merchants  mark  off  at  the  close  of  every  year, 
and  the  chief  reason  why  children  are  hungry  and  scantily 
clad. 

The  only  thing  that  a  drink  of  whisky  ever  suggests  is 
another  drink  of  whisky.  Whisky  never  suggested  to  a  drunk- 
ard that  he  buy  shoes  for  his  children  or  furniture  for  his 
house,  but  it  has  suggested  to  creatures,  once  men,  that  they 
take  the  shoes  from  the  feet  of  their  babies,  the  furniture  from 
their  scantily  supplied  house,  to  buy  more  whisky.  Society, 
if  society  is  not  to  be  impoverished,  must  receive  an  honest 
return  for  an  honest  investment.  This  is  the  sound  law  of  the 
finished  product  by  which  we  judge  every  honest  business  of 
the  community. 

The  saloon  is  an  industrial  parasite,  feeding  off  of  society 
and  returning  to  society  no  good  thing.  "It  is  not  a  business, 
it  is  a  crime."  The  revenue  the  liquor  institution  promises 
the  State  is  not  one  thirty-fifth  of  that  which  it  steals  from 
the  State,  and  all  the  little  it  seems  to  give  is  quickly  devoured 
by  its  maimed  and  impoverished,  its  imbecile  and  criminal. 
The  financial  drain  of  the  liquor  institution  upon  the  govern- 
ment has  not  yet  been  computed. 

Prohibition  is  patriotic  because  it  is  the  proved  friend  of 
labor  and  capital,  and  because  it  makes  society  industrially 
consistent  by  applying  to  the  liquor  institution  the  sound  eco- 
nomic laws  of  wealth  and  waste,  business  and  crime,  that  are 
everywhere  applied  to  all  other  institutions  of  the  State.    Pro- 

[161] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

hibition  is  patriotic  because  it  strikes  a  tremendous  blow 
against  industrial  incompetency,  because  it  destroys  society's 
great  industrial  impoverisher. 

That  which  makes  for  the  physical,  moral  and  industrial 
incompetency  of  citizens  makes  for  the  corruption  of  politics 
and  for  bad  government.  The  liquor  institution  is  therefore 
the  most  dangerous,  the  supreme  corrupter  of  government ; 
for  it,  more  than  any  other  institution,  makes  for  physical, 
industrial  and  moral  incompetency.  It  goes  without  argu- 
ment that  other  things  being  equal,  a  man  physically  weak 
cannot  serve  the  State  as  well  as  a  physically  strong  man. 
Ignorance,  demoralizing  home  life,  poverty,  immorality  and 
irreligion  are  the  most  insidious  foes  of  good  government. 

The  liquor  institution  thrusts  the  State  to  its  very  vitals 
when  it  tampers  with  the  electorate.  And  in  the  hollow  of  the 
liquor  hand  is  the  corrupted  and  corruptible  vote  of  the  Re- 
public. The  liquor  traffic  not  only  corrupts  the  voter,  but  hav- 
ing corrupted  him,  holds  him  for  barter.  Whenever  great 
interests  desire  to  secure  friendly  legislation  at  the  expense  of 
the  people,  they  form  at  once  a  thieving  partnership  with  the 
saloon. 

The  destiny  of  this  Republic,  the  perpetuity  of  every  worthy 
institution  of  our  past  and  our  future  greatness,  rest  upon 
the  political  system  handed  down  to  us  from  the  fathers — a 
system  changed  from  time  to  time  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  larger  freedom,  and  advancing  truth,  but  a  system  always 
lofty  in  theory  and  benign  in  practice.  For  this  system  we 
are  now  responsible. 

The  liquor  traffic  in  all  the  years  of  its  political  power  has 
never  made  an  honest  vote  for  a  worthy  cause.  Today  it 
stands  convicted  in  every  great  city  of  the  Nation  of  un- 
numbered political  frauds  and  as  the  corrupter  and  would-be 
destroyer  of  our  whole  plan  of  government.  It  respects  no 
law  that  stands  between  it  and  financial  gain ;  it  is  the  red- 
mawed  anarchist  of  them  all. 

[162] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  supreme  arraignment  that  I  bring  in  patriotism  against 
the  saloon  I  bring  in  its  own  declaration,  "Prohibition  does 
not  prohibit."  Who  wants  Prohibition  to  fail?  Who  is  di- 
rectly responsible  in  every  instance  when  prohibition  laws  are 
violated?  How  long  will  we  tolerate  in  the  State  this  bloody- 
handed  defier  of  order? 

Rome  did  not  die  for  the  lack  of  college  and  public  games, 
for  the  want  of  culture  and  refined  society,  or  because  she 
had  no  army  or  navy.  Rome  died  when  she  rotted  at  the 
heart.  Rome  committed  moral  and  political  suicide !  Then 
her  enemies  came  out  of  the  north — the  unspoiled  Goths  and 
Vandals  from  the  wilderness.  They  overran  her  boulevards, 
they  tumbled  down  her  arches  and  temples,  they  crumpled 
her  failing  shields,  they  slew  her  sons,  they  led  her  daughters 
into  captivity,  and  trailed  her  proud  eagles  in  the  dust — 
then  Rome  died! 

I  fear  no  yellow  peril  today,  I  fear  no  foe  that  may  embark 
from  a  foreign  shore  to  do  us  hurt ;  I  fear  this  foe  within — 
this  shackler  of  bodies,  this  impoverisher  of  industry,  this 
moral  despoiler,  this  corrupter  of  government. 

Prohibition  is  patriotic  because  it  makes  for  a  sober,  in- 
dustrious, prosperous  citizenship,  an  intelligent,  educated  elec- 
torate; because  it  unhands  the  chief  corrupter  of  politics;  be- 
cause it  removes  the  progenitor  of  the  political  incompetent. 

The  supreme  question  before  the  citizen  of  the  United 
States  is :  Shall  this  government  assume  a  proper  attitude 
upon  the  issue  that  in  its  physical,  industrial,  moral  and  po- 
litical phases  is  unspeakably  greater  and  more  immediately 
vital  than  any  other  question  now  before  the  electorate? 

We  stand  for  National  Constitutional  Prohibition.  Lift  the 
shout  until  it  shakes  the  earth  and  crumbles  the  last  rum  bat- 
tlement— "A  Saloonless  Nation  by  1920,  the  three  hundredth 
year  from  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth." 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  statutory  legislation  and  consti- 
tutional amendments  are  helpless  in  the  hands  of  unfriendly 

[163] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  indifferent  political  administrations.  Prohibitory  law  is 
mandatory  law,  and  mandatory  law  is  a  tool,  not  an  automatic 
machine.  A  tool  must  be  used.  An  axe  calls  for  a  man  to 
wield  it.  Prohibition  demands  an  administration  that  will 
enforce  it. 

Government  is  not  by  law  alone,  for  government  by  law 
alone  is  anarchy.  Government  is  not  by  administration  alone, 
for  government  by  administration  alone  is  tyranny.  Worthy 
government  is  by  law  and  administration. 

Through  a  series  of  bitter  defeats,  having  been  often  de- 
ceived, we  have  come  to  the  place  of  political  wisdom  and 
today  as  never  before  in  the  history  of  the  temperance  reform 
the  uniting  Prohibitionists  of  the  country  are  commanding: 
"Our  laws  shall  declare  Prohibition,  and  our  political  parties 
and  public  officials  shall  be  held  responsible  for  the  enforcing 
of  Prohibition." 

"We  stand  for  National  Constitutional  Prohibition,"  en- 
trusted to  a  political  administration  outspokenly  committed  to 
the  amendment  and  to  the  statutory  legislation  that  must  every- 
where be  enacted  and  enforced  to  make  the  amendment  ef- 
fective. 

The  enlistment  pledge  of  the  Flying  Squadron  of  America 
has  caught  the  imagination  of  the  country.  Tens  of  thousands 
of  men  and  women  with  uplifted  hands  clenched  into  fists 
have  already  announced :  "We  stand  for  the  National  Pro- 
hibition of  the  liquor  traffic ;  on  this  issue  we  fight — whenever 
an  executive  officer,  a  politician,  or  a  political  party  prefers 
the  liquor  traffic  above  public  morals,  such  men  must  be  set 
aside  and  such  parties  abandoned." 

This  is  the  morning  of  a  great  political  judgment  day — 
a  day  when  men  and  organizations  are  being  weighed  and  when 
many  are  found  to  be  wanting,  l)ut  a  day  when  fearless,  patri- 
otic statesmen  are  leading  the  people  into  a  new  Promised 
Land.  Never  again  will  a  congressman  be  elected  in  the 
United  States  without  declaring  himself  either  for  or  against 

[164] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

National  Prohibition.  There  will  never  be  another  general 
election  in  this  country  without  the  recognition  of  the  fact  on 
the  part  of  the  people  that  Prohibition  is  the  paramount  issue 
before  the  electorate. 

Here  then  is  the  challenge  of  patriotism — America  needs 
every  man  at  his  best!  Give  America  clear  minds,  strong 
bodies,  and  unspoiled  souls,  and  she  will  meet  and  solve  every 
problem  of  her  present  and  future  as  she  has  met  successfully 
every  great  problem  of  her  glorious  past.  But  the  liquor  traf- 
fic will  give  to  the  armies  of  her  national  progress  trembling 
limbs,  blinded  eyes,  poverty  of  purse  and  of  soul,  and  hearts 
that  are  too  frail  to  pump  the  blood  of  mighty  deeds. 

It  is  written  in  the  plan  of  God  for  the  ages  that  America 
shall  not  fail.  The  liquor  traffic,  her  most  insidious  foe,  is 
an  unmitigated  evil  and  must  be  destroyed ! 

Are  the  progress  armies  of  the  great  Republic  less  patriotic 
than  the  armies  of  Europe?  The  armies  of  Europe  have 
banished  intoxicants. 

Is  America  less  patriotic  than  China?  China  has  banished 
opium. 

Is  America  less  patriotic  than  Russia?  Russia  has  banished 
vodka. 

Is  America  less  patriotic  than  France?  France  has  ban- 
ished absinthe.     NO. 

The  patriotism  of  the  United  States  zvill  banish  the  liquor 
traffic. 

This  father  of  crooked  and  imbecile  children,  this  pro- 
curer of  vice  districts,  this  resourceful  enemy  of  the  home, 
of  the  school  and  of  the  church,  this  corrupter  of  men  and 
of  institutions,  this  "great  destroyer"  has  ridden  far  and  rid- 
den long,  but  he  now  rides  to  a  fatal  fall. 

Shall  the  property  cries  of  those  who  have  coined  into 
money  and  builded  into  houses  the  hearts  of  widows  and 
orphans  and  the  souls  of  drunkards,  deter  the  Nation  that 
from  the  North  and  from  the  South  poured  its  treasure  and 

[1651 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

its  sons  into  the  furnace  of  fratricidal  strife,  that  a  single 
torch  of  truth  might  be  set  aflame? 

No !  This  Nation  will  not  be  deterred,  and  there  will  be 
no  compensation.  Rather,  if  the  liquor  institution  continues 
to  retard  justice  by  corrupting  the  electorate  while  it  impov- 
erishes the  children  of  the  State,  let  there  be  confiscation ! 

Shall  the  cry  of  personal  liberty  turn  aside  the  marching 
legions  that  have  seen  the  white  faces  of  their  sisters  from 
the  barred  windows  of  alcohol-fed  brothels,  that  have  looked 
upon  the  rum-shackled  bodies  of  their  brothers?  Shall  that 
perfidious  cry  delay  the  sons  of  sires  who  counted  no  liberty 
dear  enough  to  hold,  who  gave  up  all  when  "suppliant  freedom 
called,"  and  "the  embattled  farmers  stood  and  fired  the  shot 
heard  'round  the  world"? 

No! 

We  will  not  be  turned  aside.    And  we  will  not  delay. 

Personal  liberty  must  be  subordinate  to  public  weal. 

Shall  we  hold  the  gift  too  precious  or  the  price  too  great 
to  pay? 

When  the  demon  of  the  ages,  reeking-mawed,  disputes  the 
way? 

No  !     Ten  thousand  times  No ! 

There  is  no  agency  on  earth  or  in  hell  strong  enough  to 
deliver  the  liquor  institution  from  its  just  doom.  The  only 
power  that  could  strike  the  fast  descending  sword  of  retri- 
bution from  the  avenging  hand  of  this  Republic  is  the  power 
of  Almighty  God.    And  that  power  is  on  the  other  side! 

Then  strike,  comrades  of  the  long  war,  strike ! 
Strike  through  your  blinding  tears, 
Strike  with  the  passion  of  the  years, 
Strike  till  the  rum  foe  disappears; 

It  shall  not  stand. 
"Strike  till  the  last  armed   foe  expires, 
Strike  for  your  altars  and  your  fires, 
Strike  for  the  green  graves  of  your  sires, 

God  and  your  native  land." 
[166] 


MOTHERS  OF  MEN. 
The  Mystery. 

Ah,  lad  with  questioning  eyes  of  deepest  brown 

Uplifted  to  your  mother's  wondrous  face; 
With  chubby  arms  that  draw  the  dear  head  down, 
And  frame  the  smile  that  lights  this  blessed  place ; 
What  is  the  question  in  your  tousled  head? 
You  rest  a  moment  from  your  sturdy  play. 

And  nestle  quiet  in  the  comfort  of  her  breast; 
Your  parted,  ruby  lips — what  would  they  say 

If  they  could  tell  the  wonder  of  your  boy  heart's  quest, 
If  they  could  lift  the  latch  where  only  thoughts 
may  tread? 

Ah,  lad,  a  moment  cradled  in  your  mother's  arms, 

Unmindful  of  your  busy  world,  and  bent 
Upon  the  search  for  that  which  stills  your  child  alarms, — 

This  is  the  richest  boon  that  heaven  sent; 
This  is  God's  bravest  gift,  His  choicest  good. 
I,  too,  have  watched  your  mother's  wondrous  face. 

Transfigured  by  the  love  that  gave  you  birth, 
Her  hand  in  mine,  she  journeyed  back  through  space; 

Then  in  her  eyes  I  saw  a  glory  not  of  earth; 
My  son,  this  mystery  is  Motherhood. 

WOMEN  compose  music,  but  they  are  not  musicians; 
they  paint  pictures,  but  they  are  not  artists ;  they 
find  new  stars,  but  they  are  not  astronomers ;  they 
chart  the  rocks,  but  they  are  not  geologists ;  they  heal  the  sick, 
but  they  are  not  physicians ;  they  superintend  the  schools  of 
great  cities,  but  they  are  not  educators ;  they  enter  with  suc- 
cess well-nigh  every  department  of  human  endeavor,  but  they 
are  not  administrators ;  they  glorify  the  pulpit,  but  they  are 
not  preachers ;  they  exert  a  healthy  influence  on  politics,  but 

[167] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

they  are  not  politicians ;  they  contribute  largely  toward  the 
solution  of  problems  among  nations,  but  they  are  not  states- 
men ;  they  enter  constructively  every  field  of  reform,  but  they 
are  not  reformers.   Always  they  are  the  Mothers  of  Men. 

Concerning  "Votes  for  Women"  the  womanhood  of  the 
twentieth  century  is  divided  into  three  groups, — Suffragists, 
Anti-Suffragists,  and  the  numerically  greatest  group,  the 
indifferent.  Either  of  the  two  contending  groups,  to  succeed 
finally,  must  make  positive  the  potential  and  win  to  action 
the  indifferent. 

I  am  not  a  prophet,  but  as  a  plain  reader  of  history  I  know 
that  success  invariably  comes  to  the  positive,  constructive 
movement.  In  their  beginnings,  the  great  reforms  of  history 
have  been  cries  of  protest,  uprisings  of  denunciation ;  men 
have  been  merely  against  the  existing  order.  But  in  the  sure 
evolution  of  liberty,  even  when  the  final  period  of  evolution 
has  been  revolution,  before  the  last  consummation  of  any 
freedom,  a  forward  goal  has  been  set,  mental  and  spiritual 
attitudes  have  become  positive,  a  constructive  program  has 
been  declared,  and  the  battlecry  has  been  changed  from 
"Don't"  to  "Do." 

The  suffrage  movement  is  positive  and  constructive.  The 
breaking  down  of  the  walls  of  indifference  is  close  at  hand. 
Final  and  complete  triumph  is  inevitable,  and  it  is  not  far 
away. 

But  the  masculine  mind  approaches  the  feminist  movement 
with  inquiry  and  suspicion.  He  is  a  rash  man  who  attempts 
to  analyze  a  woman's  mind,  to  invade  with  even  friendly 
intent  the  sanctity  of  a  woman's  soul.  It  is  my  purpose  to 
tread  only  a  sure  path.  I  would  not  engage  in  metaphysical 
research  and  philosophical  dissertation.  I  would  answer  the 
question  of  a  man's  mind  with  a  man's  answer. 

You  would  say,  the  feminist  movement  is  woman's  quest 
for  life — larger,  fuller,  more  abundant  life;  it  is  the  inexorable 
evolution  of  a  woman's  soul;  it  is  the  world-old  struggle  of 

[168] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

personality  to  realize  itself.  But  with  statements  such  as  these 
men  grope  in  utter  darkness.  I  search  for  the  man's  answer 
to  a  man's  question. 

Education  is  the  hope  of  woman-suffrage.  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  Millions  think 
they  are  opposed  to  woman-suffrage,  when,  by  every  finer 
instinct  of  their  natures,  they  are  not. 

To  answer  the  masculine  question,  "Why  this  feminist 
movement?"  I  must  know  woman's  dominating  impulse,  her 
supreme  motive,  her  consuming  passion.  And  I  say,  without 
fear  of  contradiction,  that  whether  she  bears  children  of  her 
own,  or  mothers  another's,  or  mothers  a  community  or  a 
state,  or  a  reform,  or  the  world,  the  dominating  impulse  of 
womanhood  is  the  mother  impulse,  her  motive  is  the  mother 
motive,  her  passion  is  the  mother  passion.  Always  it  is  the 
impulse,  the  passion  of  motherhood — that  her  .«5ons  and  daugh- 
ters, the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  race,  shall  be  clean,  well- 
bodied,  of  unspoiled  soul,  and  worthy. 

You  ask  me  where  I  found  the  answer?  The  winds  did  not 
carry  it  to  me.  I  did  not  read  it  in  the  stars.  I  saw  it  first 
in  my  mother's  eyes,  but  then  it  was  altogether  a  mystery.  I 
found  it  in  the  brave  eyes  of  the  matchless  woman,  when  with 
uncovered  soul  she  came  back  to  me  from  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  bearing  our  first-born.  There  in  life's  holy 
of  holies,  with  heaven  embattled  all  about,  I  found  the  answer. 
But  I  did  not  understand,  I  did  not  fathom  it,  for  it  is  given 
to  no  man  fully  to  understand. 

"The  greatest  battle  that  ever  was  fought, 
Shall  I  tell  you  where  and  when? 
On  the  maps  of  the  world  you  will  find  it  not ; — 
'T  was  fought  by  the  mothers  of  men." 

'T  was  fought  by  uncrowned  womanhood ;  who,  when  the 
clouds  of  battle  hung  heavy  o'er  the  land,  drew  from  bleeding 

[169] 


Speeches  or  The  Flying  Squadron 

finger-tips  the  food  for  babes  at  home ;  who  have  stood  with 
Spartan  fortitude,  unbowing,  through  a  thousand  gales  of 
compromise;  from  whose  wombs  have  sprung  the  empires  of 
freedom,  and  at  whose  breasts  have  nursed  the  soldiers  of 
liberty  and  the  leaders  of  every  righteous  cause  since  time 
began;  mothers,  wives,  sisters,  sweethearts,  who  have  kindled 
and  rekindled  in  the  hearts  of  men  the  fires  of  truth  and 
patriotism ;  who,  with  the  mingled  light  of  devotion  and  sacri- 
fice shining  from  their  eyes,  have  sent  their  sons  and  loved 
ones  on  fields  of  blood  and  greater  fields  of  peace,  courageous 
down  to  war. 

Let  no  man  say  that  the  cry  of  womanhood  is  a  sudden  cry, 
the  expression  of  a  whim,  the  utterance  of  a  desire  just 
formed.  We  are  at  the  concentric  point  of  many  generations; 
this  is  the  conclusion  of  ages.  For  the  good  of  the  race, 
womanhood  did  not  ask  for  the  ballot  one  generation  too  soon. 

She  has  tried  every  other  way.  She  has  turned  her  heart  and 
hand  to  many  promising  devices.  Bravely  she  has  struggled 
through  the  long  darkness  of  prejudice  in  men  and  tradition 
in  women.  Having  tested  her  footing  throughly,  she  knows 
that  her  face  is  set  in  the  only  way. 

She  has  borne  the  iniquities  of  the  double  standard ;  she 
has  gathered  up  the  broken  bodies  of  her  sons  from  off  the 
plains  of  war;  she  has  watched  the  virtue  of  her  daughters 
burning  at  the  stake  of  man's  lust ;  she  has  been  a  beast  of 
burden  and  a  slave  of  passion.  From  the  day  of  Noah's  great 
debauch  to  this  year  of  our  Lord  she  has  seen  the  race  struggle 
down  the  years  beneath  its  drunken  load ;  she  has  wept ;  she 
has  prayed ;  she  has  petitioned ;  she  has  been  a  clinging  vine ; 
she  has  wooed ;  she  has  gone  to  the  last  ditch  with  sacrifice. 
To  the  unequal  struggle  she  has  brought  every  resource  of  her 
sex.  And  she  has  not  failed.  Against  unnumbered  handicaps 
she  has  greatly  prevailed.  And  she  will  prevoil!  Today  her 
marching  legions  are  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham  ;  tomorrow 
the  city  falls. 

[170] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  man  who  says  that  woman's 
sphere  is  the  home.  Nor  have  you.  I  have  no  quarrel  with 
the  man  who  declares  that  the  home  sphere  is  big  enough  to 
command  woman's  whole  life.  /  agree.  But  what  of  the  at 
least  seven  million  women  in  industry,  that  have  no  homes, 
and  what  are  the  bounds  of  the  modern  home?  What  of  the 
seven  million  women  driven  by  necessity,  under  conditions 
arising  in  a  masculine  government,  into  public  life?  "It  is 
to  protect  the  home  by  protecting  themselves  that  these  work- 
ers outside  the  home,  whether  yet  conscious  of  the  fact  or 
not,  need  the  ballot." 

And  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  w^here  it  declares  in  Amendment  XIV,  Section 
1,  "All  persons  born  or  naturalized  in  the  United  States  and 
subject  to  the  jurisdiction  thereof  are  citizens  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  No  State  shall 
make  or  enforce  any  law  which  shall  abridge  the  privileges 
or  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States,"  etc.? 

It  will  take  more  than  a  sex  prejudice  finally  to  abridge 
freedom;  it  will  take  more  than  a  sex  tradition  finally  to 
defeat  liberty.  And  let  us  remember  that  a  government  of 
and  for  the  people  can  not  be  by  the  people  while  half  the 
people  are  debarred.  I  hope  that  I  am  enough  a  man  to  refuse 
any  conspiracy  of  ignorance  or  prejudice  that  would  continue 
the  political  condition  by  which  women  are  classed  with 
criminals  and  aliens. 

To  say  that  women  differ  from  men,  that  the  spheres  of  the 
two  sexes  are  distinct,  is  to  state  the  very  fundamental  reason 
for  woman-sufifrage.  I  yield  to  no  man  in  my  appreciation  of 
those  distinctive  attributes  of  womanhood  that  have  made  her 
the  creature  of  song  and  story,  the  adoration  of  brave  knights, 
and  always  earth's  holiest  inspiration  to  all  true  masculine 
hearts.  But  as  the  words  run  in  a  fantastic  tale,  "True,  we 
are  as  you  say,  creatures  of  the  air.  True,  we  are  born  with 
wings.   But  didn't  we  have  to  come  down  to  earth  to  eat  and 

[1711 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

sleep,  to  love,  to  marry,  and  to  bear  our  young?"  Men  cannot 
think  for  women;  men  cannot  adequately  act  for  women;  the 
most  chivalrous  men  cannot  rightly  defend  the  rights  of 
women,  and  the  most  cosmopolitan  men  are  not  able  fully  to 
supply  the  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  necessities  of  women. 
It  has  been  well  said:  "Men  cannot  contribute  woman's 
wisdom  to  the  solution  of  public  problems  because  they  do 
not  possess  it.  And  of  their  legislation  without  woman's  aid, 
much  is  folly,  and  more,  a  mere  one-eyed  wisdom."  Mrs. 
Pankhurst,  for  protesting — militantly,  I  grant — but  for  pro- 
testing against  a  condition  against  which  her  soul  revolted 
made  herself  liable  to  a  sentence  of  fourteen  years.  On  one 
of  her  many  days  of  arraignment  she  appeared  in  a  court 
where  a  fiend,  convicted  of  an  unspeakable  crime  against  a 
little  girl  twelve  years  old,  receiving  the  maximum  sentence 
for  his  offense,  was  returned  to  prison  for  two  years.  We  do 
not  approve  of  militant  methods,  but  that  does  not  blind  our 
eyes  to  the  horrible  shadows  of  such  a  contrast. 

Women  are  imperatively  needed  in  the  struggle  for  the 
solution  of  life's  big  problems.  And  in  the  fight  for  human 
progress  where  they  so  gladly  join  is  it  the  part  of  chivalry 
or  wisdom  to  admit  them  short  of  fully  armed? 

But  the  master  motive  and  passion  of  womanhood,  the 
mother  motive,  the  mother  passion — what  of  it?  The  sphere 
of  womanhood  is  the  home,  and  to  the  ears  of  true  women  in 
comparison  with  the  home,  all  other  things  are  as  the  challenge 
of  the  incidental. 

But  here  again  we  are  confronted  by  the  facts  and  condi- 
tions of  society,  society  as  it  is  today.  We  have  come  out 
of  the  past,  and  the  present  is  different !  Agreeing  that 
woman's  sphere  is  the  home,  what  is  the  modern  home  ?  What 
are  its  present  bounds?  "The  modern  home  is  not  a  harem, 
shut  away  from  life  around  it."  And  certainly  it  is  not  now 
as  it  was  in  the  days  when  the  narrow  confines  of  a  settler 
cabin  and  clearing  contained  it.    "The  modern  home  is  a  link 

[172] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

in  the  chain  of  modern  society,  and  as  such  is  exposed  to 
every  peril  which  confronts  society."  It  is  surrounded  by  the 
food-aoper,  the  peddler  of  poisonous  drugs,  the  exploiter  of 
child  toilers,  and  the  cheapener  of  labor,  by  organized  prosti- 
tution and  the  red-mawed  liquor  traffic.  In  combating  these 
perils  men  need  the  help  "which  wise,  courageous  women 
want  to  give  and  which  all  women  owe." 

"Man  with  instincts  more  largely  selfish,  has  overempha- 
sized his  symbol  of  power,  the  dollar.  Woman,  mtuitive 
keener  of  conscience,  surer  of  moral  vision,  and  larger  of 
human  sympathy,  is  trying  to  shift  the  emphasis  upon 
humanity.  Nature's  balance  will  be  struck  when  male  and 
female  work  together." 

Yesterday  the  grain  from  which  the  family  flour  was 
ground  grew  on  the  home  acres,  was  ground  in  the  home 
mill  and  mother  baked  the  great  round  loaves  in  the  home 
oven  Today  the  grain  grows  in  a  thousand  far-away  fields 
is  ground  in  any  one  of  ten  thousand  distant  mills,  and  baked 
into  loaves  by  any  pair  of  ten  thousand  more  or  less  cleanly 

hands.  ,   „      ,  ,     j 

Yesterday  mother  made  William's  suit  and  Sarah  s  dress 
from  flax  grown,  gathered,  cured,  corded,  spun,  woven, 
designed,  cut,  and  fashioned— all  within  a  loud  halloo  of  the 
kitchen  stoop.  Today,  perhaps  a  haggard-eyed  consumptive 
fighting  for  bread  and  breath  in  a  crowded  sweat-shop  of  a 
distant  city,  with  bleeding  fingers,  bending  close  her  poor 
diseased  eyes,  hastily  stitched  together  the  little  dress  your 

baby  wears.  , 

Yesterday  the  children  gathered  in  the  great  kitchen  and 
plaved  charades,  or  romped  under  the  orchard  trees  in  Black 
Man  and  King  William,  or,  in  hours  of  rare  abandon,  they 
danced  "Skipt-to-ma-loo."  Today,  every  child  of  the  city  is 
menaced  by  the  dance-hall,  the  summer  garden,  the  low 
theater,  and  a  hundred  other  public  places  of  questionable 
and  worse  than  questionable  amusements. 

[173] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Yesterday  we  went  to  school  on  the  hill  where  the  school- 
house  roof  was  red,  the  shutters  green,  and  the  rule  was  the 
rule  of  three,  and  where  no  child  was  ever  spoiled  because 
Solomon's  warning  was  not  heeded.  Today  our  children  find 
on  the  road  that  leads  to  knowledge,  car-tracks,  and  diphthe- 
ria, the  whims  of  an  ever-changing  educational  system,  and 
in  not  a  few  instances,  the  procurers  of  vice  districts. 

Yesterday  mother  settled  the  child-labor  problem  with  her 
slipper:  today  the  solution  of  it  is  at  the  end  of  a  long  road 
that  leads  by  oyster-beds  and  cotton-mills,  through  factories 
-and  into  deep  mines. 

The  problems  of  a  minimum  and  living  wage  for  women 
and  the  traffic  called  white  slavery  are  creatures  of  the  home's 
modern  environment,  and  the  answers  to  their  questions  must 
be  present-tense  answers. 

And  the  liquor  traffic,  the  home's  fiercest,  concrete  foe 
stands  in  the  road  that  leads  to  the  ultimate  solution  of  every 
one  of  the  vital,  social,  economic,  moral,  and  political  problems 
of  this  tremendous  human  crisis.  And  it  is  driven  out  of  the 
way  only  by  the  ballot. 

_  Woman  suffrage  has  no  more  unrelenting  enemy  than  the 
hquor  traffic;  the  enfranchisement  of  womanhood  must  be- 
come a  fact  in  government  in  spite  of  the  liquor  traffic  Call 
"John  Barleycorn"  all  the  hard  names  in  the  vocabulary  of 
decency  and  patriotism  save  one— never  call  him  a  fool.  Jack 
London  in  his  compelling  story,  "John  Barleycorn,"  written 
in  the  form  of  an  autobiography,  relates  that  he  rode  down 
from  his  California  ranch  to  vote  for  woman-suffrage  because 
he  knew  that  it  would  be  another  weapon  for  the  smiting  of 
the  hquor  traffic.  And  let  no  suffragists  make  the  mistake  of 
silence  in  the  hope  of  placating  the  "trade."  May  the  day 
speedily  come  when  every  woman's  club,  every  female  organ- 
ization, in  the  United  States,  will  stand  outspokenly  for  a 
saloonless  Nation. 

Yes,  the  home  is  woman's  sphere.   Not  the  home  as  it  was— 

[174] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  home  as  it  is.  Not  the  simple,  shaded  path  of  yesterday, 
but  a  toiler's  rugged  road  that  leads  from  the  door-stoop  into 
every  department  of  human  endeavor,  through  every  phase 
of  society's  unrest,  and  that  girdles  the  globe.  For  today  the 
four  posts  of  the  home  are  the  four  corners  of  the  earth. 

Let  us  face  the  issue  squarely.  A  great  militant  question 
challenges  the  w^omen  of  the  race.  It  rises  from  sweat-shops, 
and  factories,  and  brothels,  and  mines,  and  molten  furnaces. 
It  is  the  cry  of  the  city  and  it  is  the  cry  of  the  town.  This  is 
the  question:    "What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

There  are  two  possible  answers  to  the  question.  One  is  the 
answer  of  tradition,  and  the  answer  of  tradition  is  that 
woman's  political  helplessness  is  her  power,  that  woman's 
weakness  is  her  strength.  The  method  that  this  answer  sug- 
gests, is,  in  the  last  analysis,  the  method  of  seduction.  Not 
necessarily,  not  generally,  gross,  immoral  seduction,  but  the 
seduction  of  smiles  and  tears,  the  seduction  of  the  wheedler 
and  the  clinging  vine. 

The  other  answer  is  the  answer  of  woman's  strength,  and  it 
opens  the  road  of  equality  by  which,  in  all  the  complexities 
of  modern  life,  the  sexes  shall  complement  each  other. 

Shall  it  be  a  resolution  or  a  vote?  I  would  rather  have  my 
wife  and  mother  and  sisters  and  daughter  go  into  the  polling- 
booth  with  a  clean  American  ballot  than  to  the  poUtical  boss, 
with  tearful  intercessions — a  political  boss  who  would  very 
likely  have  eyes  for  only  their  physical  charms. 

Which  of  the  two  answers  is  the  fair,  clean,  honest  one? 
Which  is  the  American  answer?    Which  is  the  right  answer? 

What  is  society?  Who  are  society?  Government  ought  to 
be  society's  best  expression  of  itself.  It  cannot  be  if  society's 
morally  better  part  does  not  speak.  What  is  government,  in 
the  last  analysis?  Government  is  an  institution  of  laws,  pow- 
ers, functions,  and  spirit.  And  how  is  government  achieved? 
No  man  has  ever  weighed  a  prayer,  or  fathomed  a  tear,  or 

ri75i 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

valued  a  smile ;  but  government  is  not  by  tears,  nor  prayers, 
nor  smiles — government  is  by  votes. 

Prayers  as  numberless  as  the  sands  on  the  seashore  have 
reached  the  Almighty's  throne,  supplicating  the  destruction 
of  the  liquor  traffic.  An  ocean  of  tears  has  flowed,  a  billion 
hearts  have  broken ;  all  the  wiles  of  frantic  mothers  ready  to 
sell  their  lives,  if  not  to  give  their  souls,  have  been  employed 
that  saloon  doors  might  be  closed  forever,  and  today  the  rum 
institution  still  rests  in  the  protecting  shelter  of  a  masculine 
dollar  sign.  Only  by  stainless  ballots  shall  we  ever  achieve  a 
stainless  flag.  When  the  women  of  America  are  granted  the 
voting-priviliges  of  citizenship,  we  will  bury  the  liquor  traffic 
beneath  an  avalanche  of  votes,  deeper  than  the  foundations 
of  the  earth! 

But  enthusiasm  must  not  lead  us  into  unwarranted  hopes. 
Woman's  suffrage  will  not  solve  at  once  all  the  ills  of  the 
race.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  require  women  to  correct  in  a  few 
decades  the  accumulated  masculine  mistakes  of  uncounted 
generations.  They  will  commit  follies ;  they  will  make  mis- 
takes ;  they  will  go  astray.  Even  we  of  the  "superior"  sex 
have  committed  political  follies,  made  mistakes,  and  gone 
astray.  "Democracy  is  at  best  a  succession  of  stumbles  for- 
ward. But  democracy  is  society's  last  recourse,  since  all  other 
philosophies  of  government  have  been  tried  and  found  want- 
ing." And  without  votes  for  women  democracy  is  an  attempt 
to  walk  by  hopping  on  one  leg. 

But  let  no  one  think  that  suffrage  where  it  is  in  the  process 
of  demonstration  is  a  failure.  *In  the  State  of  Washington 
at  least  nine  progressive  laws  must  be  credited  largely  to 
woman-suffrage,  in  Oregon  twelve,  in  Utah  thirteen,  in  Colo- 
rado sixteen,  in  Idaho  nine,  in  Wyoming  nine,  and  in  Cali- 
fornia nineteen.  These  laws  have  to  do  with  the  home,  the 
school,  reform  institutions  and  asylums,  juvenile  courts,  pure 
foods  and  drugs,   working   conditions   of   men,   women,   and 

*This  was  the  legislative  situation  in  the  suffrage  States  in  1914. 

[176] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

children,  public  health  and  morals,  conservation  of  natural 
resources,  and  the  greatest  conservation  of  all — the  conserva- 
tion of  humanity.  In  nearly  all  of  the  suffrage  States  the  age 
of  consent  has  been  raised  to  eighteen  years.  It  is  hard  to 
realize  that  in  some  instances  it  used  to  be  as  low  as  seven 
years,  and  that  it  is  still  as  low  as  twelve  years  in  a  few  States. 

The  blows  of  woman-suffrage  fall  naturally  for  humanity's 
uplift.  Woman-suffrage  strikes  and  will  strike  against  child 
labor  and  white  slavery,  for  mothers'  pensions  and  vocational 
training  in  public  schools,  for  the  establishment  of  public 
parks  and  for  the  shortening  to  a  proper  length  of  the  hours 
of  toil.  And  it  will  speed  the  day  when  women  will  say  to 
men,  in  the  words  of  Dean  Sumner  of  Chicago:  "No  longer 
shall  you  exploit  my  sex  in  vicious  marriage  selection.  Chil- 
dren of  women  no  longer  shall  be  compelled  to  suffer  with 
blind  eyes,  twisted  limbs,  and  idiotic  brains  because  of  the 
sins  of  their  fathers."  The  double  standard  of  morality  must 
go,  and  the  immoral  dance  and  immodest  dress,  leading  rea- 
sons why  boys  go  wrong,  must  not  survive. 

But  I  am  charged  with  unfairness.  Have  I  not  ignored 
many  of  the  strong,  direct  arguments  against  woman-suffrage? 
Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  deal  with  basic  principles.  A  mass 
of  incidental  contentions  I  have  brushed  aside. 

Should  the  responsibilities  of  the  vote  be  thrust  upon  women 
who  do  not  want  it,  who  are  opposed  to  having  it?  Yes,  if 
woman-suffrage  is  right.  The  only  time  a  male  citizen  has  any 
right  deliberately  to  remain  away  from  the  polls  is  when  the 
candidates  or  principles  before  the  people  give  him  no  opportu- 
nity to  express  himself,  do  not  in  any  way  represent  him. 
Evejt  then  it  is  a  tragedy.  Any  citizen  who  stays  away  from 
the  polls  for  any  other  reason  than  conscience  or  physical 
disability  should  be  temporarily  disfranchised.  We  who  enjoy 
for  ourselves  and  our  children  the  benefits  of  a  free  govern- 
ment are  required  by  the  moral  law,  and  ought  to  be  required 

[177] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

by  the  law  of  the  land,  to  pay  the  price  of  our  liberties.  Only 
thus  can  worthy  government  survive. 

Will  not  men  lose  the  spirit  of  chivalry  when  we  disturb 
the  so-called  balance  of  the  sexes?  Had  I  less  confidence  in 
true  manhood,  I  might  concede  the  point. 

As  to  women  serving  on  juries,  they  have  from  the  begin- 
ning handed  down  the  most  vital  judgments  of  the  race,  and 
as  rulers,  from  the  standpoint  of  administration,  I  know  of  no 
queens  in  history  who  altogether  failed.  Many  succeeded  in 
spite  of  frightful  odds.  Even  Cleopatra  w^as  less  a  failure 
than  Antony.    She  did  not  desert  her  country. 

Men  have  been  woefully  slow  in  discovering  that  women, 
to  whom  by  common  consent  is  delegated  the  major  portion 
of  the  moral,  religious,  educational,  and  patriotic  training  of 
the  youth,  are  actually  deprived  of  the  one  practical  text- 
book by  which  the  vital  lessons  of  citizenship  are  taught. 

We  will  agree  with  Mrs.  LaFollette  that  "the  training  of 
the  children  is  the  peculiar  province  of  w^omen."  And  the 
complexities  of  modern  life  are  increasing  tremendously  the 
burden  of  womanhood  at  this  most  strategic  point.  To  a  greater 
or  less  extent  every  man  of  the  twentieth  century  is  a  traveling 
man,  an  itinerant.  And  when  he  is  at  home,  he  isn't  at  home. 
He  is  off  in  the  morning  before  the  children  are  up,  and  with- 
out what  used  to  be  an  American  institution — the  family  altar 
(God  pity  us  for  the  loss  of  it;  God  speed  the  day  of  its 
return).  He  takes  his  lunch  down-town  or  out  of  a  basket 
by  the  side  of  the  track,  and  reaches  home  at  night  after  the 
little  ones  are  tucked  away.  This  is  the  daily  schedule  of  the 
average  masculine  American. 

Thus  far  w^e  have  demanded  of  women,  in  the  training  of 
our  sons  for  citizenship,  that  they  not  only  carry  the  greater 
portion  of  the  load,  but  that  they  give  what  they  themselves 
do  not  possess,  that  they  impart  what  they  themselves  have 
not  received.  That  mothers  have  borne  and  reared  presidents 
and  other  honorable  men  in  spite  of  the  terrific  handicap  is  a 

[178] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

glorious  evidence  of  the  power  of  womanhood,  but  a  very 
mean  argument  to  use  against  suffrage. 

We  must  remember,  too,  that  when  a  husband  and  wife  do 
not  grow  together,  they  grow  apart.  In  proportion  as  husband 
and  wife  have  mutual  interests,  the  years  bind  their  hearts  and 
blend  their  lives.  The  privileges  and  responsibilities  of  citizen- 
ship have  and  should  have  a  large  place  in  the  development 
of  the  normal  man,  and  men  and  women  will  not  be  so  well 
mated  as  the  Creator  intended  they  should  be  until  women 
are  men's  co-partners  in  the  state. 

As  to  the  great  economic  questions  of  the  hour,  the  tariff 
for  instance,  it  is  not  hard  to  concede  to  women  the  same 
degree  of  aptitude  and  knowledge  manifested  by  the  average 
masculine  statesman  of  present-day  public  life. 

John  Kendrick  Bangs  says  that  the  polling-place  is  not  a  fit 
place  for  women  to  enter — when  only  men  are  around;  and 
I  agree. 

Women  have  led  personally  some  of  the  mightiest  move- 
ments in  human  progress.  Recall  Joan  of  Arc,  Mary  Lyon, 
Frances  Willard,  Mrs.  Stevens,  and  Jane  Addams.  Women 
have  been  the  fountainheads  of  every  great  movement;  they 
have  borne  the  soldiers  of  every  reform,  the  captains  of  every 
emancipation ;  and  this  is  greater  than  the  bearing  of  arms. 

But  be  careful  how  you  apply  the  test  of  "bravest  bravery," 
my  masculine  interrogator.  I  have  come  up  through  the 
cosmopolitan  school  of  the  average  American  young  man.  I 
have  seen  courage,  the  courage  of  the  gridiron  and  the  hunt, 
the  courage  that  beards  the  character-assassin  in  his  political 
lair  of  graft,  the  courage  that  marches  in  khaki,  beneath 
streaming  banners  and  behind  pounding  drums,  and  I  have 
seen  the  courage  of  the  humdrum — the  rarest  of  all ;  but  I 
never  saw  courage  until  a  brown-eyed  bit  of  feminine  pure 
gold,  brave  enough  to  say  "Yes"  when  I  wooed  her  in  an  old 
Ohio  homestead— the  mother  of  my  children,  God  bless  her! 
— showed  it  to  me. 

[179] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Do  you  insist  that  I  go  to  the  inexorable  end  with  my  argu- 
ment? Do  you  say,  Equal  at  the  polls,  then  equal  in  toil,  equal 
in  vices?  When  true  womanhood  carries  a  hod,  she  carries 
it  with  all  the  dignity  of  a  queen;  but  where  true  men  are, 
she  will  never  again  carry  a  hod.  Equal  in  vices.  No  man 
says  that,  for  God  made  true  womanhood  different. 

And  now  I  have  reached  my  last  question.  It  was  the  last 
question  I  faced  before  I  surrendered  to  woman-suffrage. 
By  easy  stages  I  had  passed  the  place  where  I  said,  When 
all  women  or  a  great  majority  of  them,  want  the  ballot,  then 
they  ought  to  have  it.  The  smaller  questions  and  objections 
no  longer  troubled  me,  but  this  very  real  problem  confronted 
me:  Will  suffrage  defeminize  women?  Will  it  take  away  the 
tender  touch,  render  coarse  the  soft  note,  dry  the  tear  of 
sympathy,  and  deaden  the  mother  heart?  Had  I  been  com- 
pelled to  find  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  question,  no  power 
could  make  me  urge  "votes  for  women." 

Last  summer  I  went  home — back  to  the  old  home.  Back 
where  a  great  city  stands  by  a  beautiful  Oregon  river  and 
a  snow-crowned  moimtain  looks  down  from  a  sapphire  sky. 
It  was  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  there  was  a  parade.  I  have 
seen  many  parades,  many  Fourth  of  July  parades.  I  have  seen 
many  parades  in  that,  my  native  city.  One  that  I  remember 
especially  I  viewed  from  my  father's  shoulder,  when  the  Presi- 
dent came  to  town.  But  east  or  west  or  north  or  south  I  had 
never  before  seen  a  Fourth  of  July  parade  like  that  parade. 

First  in  line  came  the  city's  "blue-coats,"  filling  the  street. 
Following  the  battalion  of  police  walked  with  head  erect  the 
mayor,  and  under  his  arm  was  a  Bible!  Behind  the  mayor 
walked  the  more  than  one  hundred  boys  of  his  Sunday  school 
class,  and  each  lad  carried  a  Bible.  Behind  the  marching  boys 
came  a  military  band  playing  "Onward,  Christian  Soldiers," 
and  behind  the  band  trudged  and  sang  twelve  thousand  men. 
women,  and  children  from  the  Sunday  schools  of  Portland, 
Oregon.    A  Fourth  of  July  parade?    Yes.    And  the  reason? 

[180] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

A  few  months  before,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  the  women 
of  Portland  voted.  They  went  to  the  polls  and  elected  a 
reform  administration.  They  swept  the  city  clean.  My  mother 
and  my  sister  helped.  Father  cast  his  one  vote,  and  the 
women  of  his  family  cast  their  two !  The  great,  good  men  of 
the  city  had  tried  again  and  again.  Standing  alone  they  had 
failed.  The  day  that  saw  women  vote  for  the  first  time  in  the 
metropolis  of  Oregon  was  Portland's  great  emancipation  day. 

That  night  I  went  to  bed  in  the  old  home,  and  by  my  side 
slept  a  little  fellow,  bearing  my  name  and  carrying  my  blood 
in  his  veins.  Just  such  a  little  fellow  as  I  was  before  I  grew 
up  and  went  away.  Midnight  came,  and  I  had  not  slept. 
My  heart  was  stirred  by  a  hundred  emotions,  and  my  mind 
was  memory's  picture  gallery.  Then  across  the  threshhold 
of  the  quiet  room  swept,  soft  as  an  angel,  a  figure  in  white. 
The  cold  comes  down  at  night  in  the  Northwest.  No  swelter- 
ing there  through  sleepless,  humid  terrors !  Mother  feared 
that  I  might  be  uncovered  and  chilled  in  my  sleep.  Often  she 
had  found  me  thus.  Close  by  my  bed  she  came,  and  in  the 
dim  moonlight  that  crept  under  the  blinds  I  saw  her  stooping 
low.  I  closed  my  eyes.  I  felt  her  fingers  touch  the  coverlet. 
She  tucked  it  deftly — then  a  pause — and  then,  as  light  as  a 
breath  from  the  Milky  Way,  her  lips  brushed  my  forehead. 
Mother,  voting  citizen  of  Oregon,  had  not  changed. 

Today  she  is  as  tender  as  ever,  as  true  and  brave  and  pure 
and  wise  as  ever.  But  she  is  stronger  now,  and  more  potent. 
She  is  a  ruler  in  a  city  and  a  State.  Her  voice  is  a  voice  that 
counts  and  is  counted.  Where  yesterday  it  spoke  only  to 
plead,  today  it  speaks,  for  every  interest  of  home  and  country, 
with  authority. 

And  so  here  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter.  The 
ballot  will  be  a  weapon  of  uplift  and  freedom  in  the  brave 
hands  of  the  Mothers  of  Men.  It  will  smite  the  greed  that 
capitalizes  childhood ;  it  will  open  a  way  out  of  cotton-fields, 
factories,   and  mines  into  God's  open  country  of  birds  and 

[181] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

flowers;  and  it  will  swing  wide  the  barred  doors  of  knowledge. 
It  will  beat  back  the  avarice  that  makes  women  barren,  the 
red  light  of  shame  will  grow  dim  before  it,  and  the  iniquitious 
double  standard  of  morals  will  not  prevail  against  it.  It  will 
strike  for  pure  foods  and  drugs,  for  a  minimum  and  living 
wage,  and  for  the  new  freedom  that  makes  no  man  a  despot 
and  every  man  a  king. 

It  will  hear  first  the  call  of  life,  and  when  it  has  heard  that 
call  the  battlements  of  gold  will  not  be  able  to  withstand  it.  It 
will  protect  the  defenseless  and  weak,  and  the  strong  will  feel 
its  thrust  only  when  strength  is  mean  and  power  vicious. 

When  its  day  has  fully  come,  the  nations  will  no  longer 
tremble  beneath  the  tread  of  armies  marching  down  to  war, 
for  the  soldier-bearing  women  of  the  world  will  overthrow 
the  bloody  altar  of  Mars,  and  tomorrow  those  who  today 
bear  arms  for  kings  and  emperors  will  carry  the  benign  bur- 
dens of  a  constructive  and  universal  peace. 

It  will  be  an  all-powerful  weapon,  for  it  is  the  love  weapon 
of  the  world;  it  will  not  fail,  for  in  the  hand  that  grasps  it 
is  the  passion  of  motherhood,  and  in  the  arm  that  wields  it  is 
the  strength  of  the  Lord  God  of  hosts. 


1821 


THE  DAWN  OF  NATIONAL  PROHIBITION. 

THERE  is  a  challenge  in  circumstances.  Challenged  by 
the  difficult,  men  accomplish  the  difficult.  Confronted 
by  that  which  is  seemingly  impossible,  in  the  drive  of  a 
great  crisis,  men  achieve  tlie  "impossible."  When  liberty  is 
at  stake  and  truth  crushed  to  earth,  omnipotence  opens  the 
way,  supermen  overturn  the  thrones  of  wrong,  and  set  their 
brothers  free. 

On  July  9,  1386,  the  knights  of  ancient  Switzerland  stood 
in  the  shadows  of  their  icy  mountains,  surrounded  by  their 
foreign  oppressors,  and  outnumbered.  The  patriots  were  un- 
armed save  for  flails  and  scythes.  To  the  left,  to  the  right,  and 
in  front  of  the  devoted  company  were  the  unyielding  enemy, 
and  behind  towered  the  frozen  crags  which  no  man  could 
scale.  There  was  no  way  of  escape.  Switzerland  was  doomed 
to  die. 

But  in  that  dark  hour  one  man  found  himself.  Arnold  von 
Winkelried  leaped  from  the  midst  of  his  neighbors,  cast  him- 
self upon  the  cold  steel  of  the  foe,  gathered  a  dozen  spears 
into  his  breast,  bore  them  to  the  earth,  and  died,  and  as  he 
died  he  cried,  "Make  way  for  liberty!"  History  writes  that 
over  the  prostrate  form  of  that  heroic  martyr  and  down  the 
narrow  lane  thus  made  his  neighbors  marched  with  flail  and 
scythe  to  liberty.  The  cantons  of  Switzerland  are  free  today 
because  one  man,  challenged  by  a  stupendous  circumstance, 
matched  his  body  and  soul  against  an  empire,  accomplished 
the  "impossible,"  and  found  freedom  for  his  people. 

Today  the  temperance  forces  of  the  United  States  are 
challenged  by  unparalleled  circumstances.  It  was  the  chal- 
lenge of  the  difficult  that  the  men  heard  who  met  in  a  room 
of  the  historic  Neil  House  in  Columbus,  Ohio,  in  November, 
1913,  to  organize  the  Flying  Squadron  of  America;  it  was 
indeed  the  challenge  of  the  difficult,  for  these  men  were  not 
strangers  to  the  risks  of  the  fight.    But  it  was  also  a  challenge 

[183] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

born  of  a  passionate  desire,  a  consuming  passion,  and  an  ever- 
enlarging  faith. 

In  high  courage  they  made  their  plans  for  a  campaign  of 
continuous  public  meetings  reaching  every  State  of  the  Union 
and  presenting  in  every  State  capital,  in  every  great  university 
center,  and  in  every  other  strategic  city  of  the  Republic,  the 
message  of  National  Prohibition.  With  calm  deliberateness 
they  w^rought  a  dream,  the  fulfillment  of  w^hich  would  see 
accomplished  a  speaking  tour  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
the  platform  of  the  world.  And  with  devotion  to  truth  un- 
surpassed, they  agreed  to  go  on,  though  voices  might  fail, 
though  bodies  might  break,  though  the  savings  of  a  lifetime 
might  be  swept  away ;  they  agreed  to  go  on,  though  life  itself 
should  finally  be  demanded  as  a  ransom  for  freedom  upon  the 
altar  of  the  Alcohol  Moloch. 

And  then  before  the  day's  work  was  counted  as  done,  these 
men  went  on  their  knees  about  a  small  table  in  the  room  that 
tradition  says  was  once  occupied  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
in  fervent  prayer  lifted  their  movement  and  themselves  to  the 
throne  of  all-wisdom  and  all-power. 

The  country  read  the  record  of  that  day,  studied  its  plan, 
and  said,  "The  thing  cannot  be  done.  These  men  are  fools. 
That  which  they  have  banded  themselves  together  to  accom- 
plish is  physically,  financially  and  mentally  impossible." 

But  today  the  vision  first  seen  by  a  little  group  in  Columbus, 
Ohio,  is  a  finished  work.  The  Flying  Squadron  of  America 
has  demonstrated  the  humanly-speaking  impossible,  and  has 
accomplished  that  whereunto  it  was  sent.  With  wrecks  in 
front  of  it,  and  wash-outs  behind  it,  with  disease  often  threat- 
ening it,  with  financial  disaster  never  far  away,  conquering 
seven  frozen  mountain  ranges,  crossing  and  recrossing  the 
continent  in  the  dead  of  winter,  the  Flying  Squadron  has  gone 
on  to  the  last  meeting  of  its  schedule,  failing  to  reach  not  a 
single   city   of   its   planned  program.     We   know    today   that 

[184] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

it  could  not  fail,  because  the  issue  of  its  fight  was  fixed  in 
Heaven,  and  its  destiny  was  in  the  hand  of  God. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  challenge  of  the  difficult  that  the 
Flying  Squadron  heard.  It  was  also  the  challenge  of  the 
unparalleled  reinforcements,  marshalled  from  every  depart- 
ment of  organized  society.  The  army  of  science,  that  brands 
alcohol  as  a  poison ;  the  forces  of  industry,  that  name  him  a 
foe  of  labor  and  an  impoverisher  of  business ;  religion,  that 
puts  on  him  the  mark  of  Cain ;  and  patriotism,  that  brands 
him  as  a  traitor  to  the  State, — today  march  openly  under  the 
white  flag  of  Prohibition. 

And  out  of  all  the  challenges  that  inspire  the  hearts  of  those 
who  labor  for  the  annihilation  of  the  liquor  traffic,  the  most 
inspiring,  and  the  most  convincing,  is  found  in  the  challenge 
of  the  allied  reforms.  However  men  may  disagree  in  plan, 
policy  and  method,  as  to  the  solution  of  the  liquor  problem, 
all  who  labor  today  in  the  general  field  of  reform  for  the 
strengthening  of  the  State  and  for  the  building  of  a  better 
civilization,  are  unanimously  agreed  that  the  liquor  traffic  is 
the  enemy  of  the  people,  and  all  are  fast  coming  to  believe 
that  no  great  humanitarian  problem  of  the  hour  can  be  finally 
solved  until  the  liquor  question  is  finally  answered. 

Today  we  face  the  foe  of  our  common  humanity  with  the 
inexorable  facts  of  science,  political  economy,  law  and  politics. 
With  the  white  light  of  philanthropy,  religion  and  patriotism, 
we  illuminate  his  last  hiding  places.  Today  John  Barleycorn, 
no  longer  able  to  cover  himself  with  the  cloaks  of  ignorance 
and  falsehood,  snarls  out  from  every  problem  that  challenges 
an  outraged  society  to  a  finish-fight. 

The  problem  of  the  American  city  waits  for  the  solution 
of  the  liquor  problem,  and  upon  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  the  American  city  rests  the  future  of  the  American  Re- 
public. Ancient  empires  generally  dated  the  beginning  of  their 
decline  and  fall  from  that  period  which  saw  the  people  coming 
up  from  the  country  into  the  town  and  city.   We  have  reached 

[1851 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that  period  in  our  National  development.  The  corrupted  and 
corruptible  vote  of  the  United  States  is  quite  generally  in  the 
great  congested  districts  of  our  country,  and  always  in  the 
hollow  of  the  liquor  hand.  New  York  and  Chicago  will  not 
round  up  their  gun-men  and  their  other  crime  parasites,  until 
they  shut  down  the  rendezvous  and  breeding  places  of  the 
crime  parasite — the  saloon. 

Judge  Anderson  of  Indiana  said,  in  pronouncing  sentence 
upon  the  political  leaders  of  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  convicted 
of  high  crimes  against  the  city  and  state  they  had  sworn  to 
honestly  serve,  that  nearly  all  of  the  political  corruption  of 
Terre  Haute  came  out  of  the  saloons  of  Terre  Haute,  and  he 
concluded  his  remarkable  statement  by  declaring  that  he 
believed  the  American  people  would  rise  up  and  "smash"  the 
American  saloon. 

The  vice  district  and  the  slum,  the  cheap  boarding  house 
where  voters  are  colonized,  and  the  illiteracy  that  ward  heelers 
connive  in,  will  not  pass  until  the  brewers'  place  in  politics  is 
declared  permanently  vacant  by  the  ballots  of  decency. 

We  believe  that  it  is  established  in  the  mind  of  God  that 
America  shall  not  fail.  We  believe  that  the  patriotism  of  the 
western  hemisphere  will  solve  the  problem  of  the  city — that 
problem  for  which  ancient  civilization  found  no  solution. 
Therefore  we  are  fully  persuaded  that  the  last  saloon  will  go 
out  of  business  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  child  labor  waits  on  the 
solution  of  the  liquor  problem.  We  do  not  solve  the  problem 
of  child  labor  by  taking  children  out  of  the  factories  and 
mines.  In  many  instances,  by  so  doing  we  only  intensity  it. 
Society  solves  no  vital  problem  when  it  confines  its  efforts  to 
dealing  with  effects.  W^e  must  be  wise  enough  to  see  causes, 
and  brave  enough  to  strike  down  the  institutions  that  have  so 
large  a  harvest  of  crime,  poverty  and  misery. 

Are  children  in  factories  and  in  mines  because  they  prefer 
dark  factories  to  well  lighted  schoolrooms,  because  they  prefer 

[186] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

deep,  damp  mines  to  ample  playgrounds,  under  the  trees,  in 
God's  open  air,  of  birds  and  flowers  ?  No.  They  toil  for  bread ; 
they  labor  for  clothing,  and  in  many  instances  they  enter  the 
ranks  of  industry  to  support  those  who  by  every  claim  of 
organized  society  and  civilization  are  bound  to  support  them. 

Why  are  these  children  in  industry?  At  least  three  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  of  the  more  than  two  million  child  laborers 
of  the  United  States  are  suffering  industrial  abuse  today  as 
the  direct  result  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Industrial  prohibition  is 
becoming  increasingly  a  fact  in  every  State  in  the  Union.  Big 
Business  declares  that  the  drinker  is  not  efficient,  and  that  his 
is  an  unsafe  hand  and  brain  to  entrust  with  complicated 
machinery.  "He  is  the  first  man  to  be  laid  off.  He  is  the 
last  man  to  be  taken  on."  Because  the  drinking  habits  of  the 
natural  provider  have  forced  him  out  of  industry,  his  children 
must  slave  or  starve. 

Do  you  believe  in  pensions  for  mothers?  We  believe  that 
today?  Do  you  see  this  piteous  army  staggering  up  to  Judg- 
ment— an  army  of  innocents,  legions  of  children,  broken, 
stunted,  idiotic,  with  the  hollows  of  the  factories  in  their 
cheeks,  and  the  pit-marks  of  inherited  evil  tendencies  in  their 
souls.  Some  day  I  will  come  into  the  presence  of  the  Galilean's 
"little  ones."  Some  day  I  will  appear  before  the  Throne  of  the 
Judge  of  the  earth,  whose  Son  is  the  Master  Baby-lover  of  the 
world.  I  want  no  blood  on  my  hands  then,  and  I  want  no 
empty  hands.  I  must  be  able  to  feel  that  I  have  done  one  man's 
full  share  toward  the  solution  of  this  problem.  The  liquor 
traffic  of  the  United  States  is  as  doomed  as  Judas  Iscariot  was 
when  he  betrayed  the  living  Christ,  because  the  liquor  traffic 
stands  in  the  middle  of  the  road  of  childhood. 

Do  you  believe  in  pensions  for  mothers?  We  believe  that 
the  State  must  somehow  provide  for  needy,  worthy  mothers. 
The  nation  that  does  not  make  provision  for  its  child-bearing 
women  has  no  regard  for  its  own  self-preservation.  We  be- 
lieve in  pensions  for  mothers,  and  we  also  fight  for  the  destruc- 

[187] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

tion  of  the  traffic  that,  more  than  any  other  one  thing,  is 
responsible  for  the  conditions  that  make  such  pensions  impera- 
tive in  every  State  of  our  Union. 

The  problem  of  the  high  cost  of  living  waits  on  the  solution 
of  the  liquor  problem.  We  can  tinker  with  the  tarifif  till  dooms- 
day, and  not  begin  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  high  cost  of 
living,  until  wc  solve  the  liquor  problem  of  this  country, 
America  must  snatch  from  the  thieving,  murderous  fist  of  John 
Barleycorn  its  annual  drink  bill  of  more  than  two  billion  and 
a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars.  Release  this  amount — twice 
the  national  debt  of  the  country;  twice  the  federal  expenses 
of  the  country  for  one  year;  roundly  stated,  more  than  five 
times  the  amount  invested  annually  in  the  public  school  system 
of  the  country — release  it  to  the  support  of  honest  trade,  and 
give  it  back  to  the  purchasing  hands  of  the  American  home, 
and  the  cornucopias  of  prosperity  will  shower  temporal  bless- 
ings upon  the  people. 

The  challenge  of  the  allied  reforms  is  constructive,  and  the 
particular  challenge  that  called  the  Flying  Squadron  into  the 
field  was  a  constructive  challenge.  The  program  of  the 
Flying  Squadron  is  militantly  educational  and  calls  for  united 
action  on  the  part  of  all  existing  temperance  organizations. 
We  must  not  forget,  in  these  stirring  days  of  successful  polit- 
ical activity,  the  fundamental  place  of  education  in  every 
reform. 

In  general  the  Nation  understands  that  drunkenness  is  a 
menace,  that  the  rum  institution  is  a  tremendous  barrier  in 
the  progress  road  of  humanity.  But  we  do  not  yet  thoroughly 
understand  the  commanding  position  of  the  liquor  traffic  in 
politics.  We  have  not  yet  clearly  enough  seen  its  insidious 
grip  on  public  affairs.  We  have  not  yet  fathomed  the  well- 
nigh  hopeless  amalgamation  of  the  liquor  problem  with  the 
grave  industrial  problems  that  constitute  the  mightiest  eco- 
nomic crisis  in  the  history  of  the  Republic,  and  we  have  not 

[188] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

yet  agreed  upon  campaign  plans  for  final  united  political 
action  against  the  entrenched  forces  of  the  American  saloon. 

"My  people  perish  for  the  lack  of  knowledge."  And  it  is  as 
prophetic  of  reform  as  it  is  true  of  religion,  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free."  The  truth,  the 
whole  truth,  about  alcohol  and  the  liquor  institution,  must  be 
continuously  told.  The  message  of  prohibition  reform  must 
be  spoken  in  all  languages  and  it  must  be  adapted  to  every 
class  and  order  of  society. 

It  is  possible  to  present  the  very  truth  in  such  a  way,  with 
so  narrow  and  so  vindicative  a  spirit,  as  to  sacrifice  it  in  the 
house  of  its  friends.  The  ancient  Pharisee  was  logically  and 
theologically  correct,  but  the  ancient  Pharisee  was  condemned 
— not  because  he  was  correct,  and  not  because  he  announced 
the  truth  as  he  saw  it,  but  because  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
proclaimed  his  own  virtues.  "The  letter  killeth  but  the  spirit 
maketh  alive." 

It  is  not  enough,  in  these  tremendous  days  of  reform,  that 
an  organization  should  be  correct  in  theory.  An  organization 
spirit  may  be  so  unappreciative  of  the  sincerity  and  purposes 
of  others,  and  so  condemnatory  of  the  opinions  of  its  natural 
allies,  that  the  truth  it  represents  repels  rather  than  attracts. 
Every  organization  must  see  clearly  that  it  is  part  of  a  mighty 
whole. 

The  Nation  is  in  travail  today  for  more  than  a  complete  and 
perfect  theory  of  government.  The  Nation  is  in  travail  today 
for  a  practical  application  of  the  truth,  for  the  destruction  of 
the  liquor  traffic. 

The  Flying  Squadron  of  American  applied  to  prohibition 
reform — practical  psychology — and  moved  forward  in  the 
conviction  that  it  is  not  necessary  that  men  agree  in  all  par- 
ticulars, in  order  that  they  go  together  in  full  length  of  their 
common  agreement.  The  Flying  Squadron  found  a  point  of 
contact,  a  platform  of  unity,  and  brushing  aside  the  petty 
things  of  detail,  and  the  minor  contentions  of  plan  and  policy, 

[189] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

moved  forward,  brothers  and  sisters,  in  a  common  cause,  with 
the  militant  declaration,  "We  stand  for  the  National  Prohibi- 
tion of  the  liquor  traffic." 

For  two  hundred  thirty-seven  speaking  days  this  organiza- 
tion, as  we  believe  divinely  called,  has  demonstrated  to  the 
Nation  and  the  world  the  value  of  united  action  against  the 
liquor  traffic. 

No  emphasis  on  education  as  applied  to  the  temperance 
movement  would  be  complete  without  appreciation  frankly 
expressed  for  the  comprehensive,  world-wide  educational  work 
of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union.  These  mothers 
and  sisters  of  the  white  ribbon,  have  never  forgotten  the  sound 
educational  basis  of  all  constructive  reform,  and  when  men 
in  the  excitement  and  fury  of  political  campaigns  have  for- 
gotten, the  consecrated  women  of  the  land,  without  failing  to 
fully  engage  in  every  political  campaign,  have  held  fast  the 
message  of  information  and  inspiration.  Here  a  little  and 
there  a  little,  in  public  schools  and  private,  in  Sunday  schools 
and  in  the  home,  these  women  have  told  the  truth  about 
alcohol  and  the  liquor  traffic,  scientifically  and  attractively,  and 
with  all  the  passionate  devotion  of  the  mother  soul.  And 
they  have  not  failed.  Today  fighting  generations  of  sons  and 
daughters,  born  of  the  womb,  instructed  of  the  mind  and 
inspired  of  the  heart  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union,  are  pressing  the  battle  for  Nation-wide  and  State-wide 
Prohibition,  to  the  last  gates  of  the  enemy. 

My  mother  wears  over  her  heart  a  bow  of  white.  By  her 
side  I  first  learned  the  truth,  and  over  her  knees  as  a  holy 
anvil  was  forged  the  first  sword  of  my  prohibition  fighting. 

Some  day,  when  this  cruel  war  is  over,  and  when  its  story 
is  more  fully  told ;  some  day,  when  all  the  pages  are  brought 
together  and  bound  into  books,  we  will  discover  that  more 
pages  are  devoted  to  reciting  the  achievements  of  the  "White 
Ribboners"  of  the  world  than  are  given  over  to  telling  the 
story  of  any  other  organization  in  this  stupendous  conflict. 

[190] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

But  I  would  be  untrue  to  my  conception  of  the  major  motive 
of  the  campaign  for  "A  Saloonless  Nation,  a  Sober  People, 
and  a  Stainless  Flag,"  were  I  to  fail  of  delivering  my  own  soul 
in  answering  the  question,  'Why  the  campaign  of  the  Flying 
Squadron?" 

In  the  last  analysis,  the  American  people  will  settle  with  the 
liquor  traffic  on  the  high  plane  of  decency,  morality  and  re- 
ligion. If  I  were  convinced  that  the  saloon  paid  revenue  into 
the  treasury,  that  it  brought  financial  gain  to  the  community, 
I  would  still  cry,  Prohibition. 

My  reasons  for  engaging  in  this  Holy  War  are  of  flesh 
and  bone  and  blood  and  soul.  My  reasons  are  my  children, 
for  whom  I  must  give  an  account,  not  only  to  the  State,  but 
to  God.  My  reasons  are  not  only  the  children  of  my  own 
loins,  but  your  children  as  well,  for  to  the  limit  of  my  strength 
as  a  man,  and  my  influence  as  a  citizen,  I  am  responsible  for 
the  last  child  of  this  Republic. 

May  God  forgive  us,  for  some  day  we  will  not  be  able  to 
forgive  ourselves !  In  the  fifteenth  year  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  we  still  stand  thwarted  by  an  institution  that 
succeeds  only,  and  that  can  only  succeed,  at  the  expense  of 
humanity.  When  I  feel  my  voice  failing,  my  mind  tiring,  and 
my  body  breaking,  I  go  home  and  look  into  the  faces  of  those 
who  call  me  by  that  holiest  name  that  a  man  may  ever  know, 
and  then,  with  the  blood  coursing  hot  through  my  veins  again, 
with  a  new  fire  in  my  bones,  I  come  back  rededicated  to  the 
fight  for  the  ending  of  the  institution  whose  prosperity  is  the 
disaster  of  childhood,  whose  triumph  is  the  destruction  of  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  little  children. 

Do  not  tell  me  that  the  liquor  traffic  makes  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  that  it  leavens  the  social  lump,  that  it  cuts  out 
the  inferiors,  that  the  strong  renew  and  add  to  their  strength 
by  conquering  its  temptation.  Pardon  me,  but  that  is  a  lie ! 
The  liquor  traffic  takes  out  of  society  the  bravest,  the  brawn- 
iest, the  brainiest,  the  best.     The  meanest  man  I  ever  knew 

[1911 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

never  touched  a  drop  of  liquor,  while  one  of  the  very  noblest 
and  most  unselfish  spirits  I  have  ever  known,  was  broken  of 
mind  and  body,  and  finally  damned  of  soul,  by  liquor.  Oh,  the 
shame  of  it !  He  and  I  have  whipped  trout  streams  together ; 
we  have  slept  under  a  single  rubber  blanket,  and  under  the 
stars  of  the  open  heavens  together.  And  as  I  look  back  across 
the  years  and  remember,  I  know  that  if  ever  men  fought  for 
the  soul  of  another  man,  we  fought  for  his  soul — and  we  lost ! 
He  never  found  himself.  His  mother  needed  him,  and  died 
because  she  could  not  have  him.  His  baby  son  needed  him, 
and  never  saw  him.  His  country  needed  him,  but  whisky  took 
him  and  broke  him  and  ground  him. 

After  I  have  spent  any  considerable  length  of  time  in  dis- 
cussing the  economic  and  legal  phases  of  the  beverage  alcohol 
question,  I  feel  like  asking  God  and  the  people  to  forgive  me. 
The  murderer  of  my  friends,  the  would-be  seducer  of  my 
children,  is  the  thing  I  hate.  It  is  an  institution  that  with  the 
last  slight  strength  of  my  being  I  will  fight  until  it  is  utterly 
destroyed  out  of  civilization. 

A  short  time  ago  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  I  visited  for  the 
first  time  the  tomb  of  our  greatest  American.  I  was  led  behind 
the  iron  gate  that  guards  the  entrance  to  this  American  holy 
of  holies,  and  for  a  moment  I  stood  beside  the  spot  beneath 
which  is  the  sacred  dust  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  do  not 
apologize  for  the  tears  that  I  shed,  while  my  soul  became  vocal 
and  cried :  "The  liquor  traffic  is  as  doomed  today  in  the 
United  States  of  America  as  slavery  was  when  Abraham 
Lincoln  signed  the  Emancipation  Proclamation." 

Do  you  ask  me  where  I  first  saw  the  vision  of  National 
Prohibition?  I  do  not  remember.  But  I  do  remember  the  night 
when  that  vision,  the  careless  thought  of  a  boy,  was  touched 
into  the  flame  of  a  passionate  covenant. 

I  can  see  now  the  dingy  court  room  in  Oregon,  as  it  was 
nearly  a  score  of  years  ago,  when  I  first  heard  John  G.  Woolley 
speak.    I  had  walked  five  miles  to  hear  the  address,  for  the 

[192] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

speaker  was  a  hero  in  the  home  of  my  father,  and  I  was  just 
at  the  age  when  the  average  boy  burns  his  candles  on  the 
twin  altars  of  oratory  and  adventure.  Expecting  a  great  audi- 
ence I  went  very  early  to  the  appointed  meeting  place,  and 
my  disappointment  and  disgust  can  be  easily  imagined  when 
at  the  opening  of  the  services  I  found  myself  to  be  one  among 
perhaps  twenty  gray-haired  men  and  women  gathered  to  hear 
the  orator  of  the  hour. 

I  saw  the  speaker  first  as  he  reached  out  for  the  table  and 
seemed  to  draw  himself  up  to  it.  It  was  very  apparent  that 
he  was  very  tired.  Years  afterwards  I  learned  that  he  had 
ridden  forty  miles  that  day  across  the  mountains,  through  the 
rain  and  chill,  to  keep  his  evening  appointment.  Even  the  dim 
oil  lights  could  not  hide  the  pallor  of  his  face.  His  voice  was 
husky,  and  he  spoke  very  slowly  at  the  beginning.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  from  time  to  time  he  swayed  slightly. 

But  these  were  at  the  beginning — the  pallor,  the  impression 
of  weariness,  and  the  husky  voice.  What  an  hour  it  was! 
Today  I  hear  that  voice  as  then.  I  see  those  tired  eyes  take 
fire  again,  and  I  sense  again  the  charged  atmosphere  of  that 
dingy  room.  The  message  was  immortal.  It  was  a  sword  of 
naked  truth,  and  a  white  heat  of  passion.  It  was  the  word  that 
shall  not  be  denied.  The  orator  forgot  the  crowd  had  not 
come  out  to  hear  him;  forgot  himself,  and  remembered  only 
that  he  was  an  oracle  of  God  and  a  saviour  of  his  country. 
He  proclaimed  political  chastity,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
I  have  been  governing  my  political  actions  by  the  principles 
he  there  enunciated.  He  freshened  the  wounds  of  a  great 
wrong,  and  bled  them  again  that  the  people  might  not  forget. 
He  announced  the  judgment  of  God  against  the  institution  that 
coins  into  bloody  dollars,  the  broken  bodies,  the  wrecked 
minds  and  the  spoiled  souls  of  children  and  women  and  men. 
He  visioned  of  the  day  when  the  land  of  the  free  shall  discover 
a  new  freedom,  and  when  the  battle  flag  of  King  Alcohol  shall 
come  down  from  all  the  battlements  of  the  world. 

ri931 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

And  then  he  called  for  volunteers,  for  fighting  men ;  for 
those  who  would  hold  fast,  who  would  stand  in  their  own 
places  against  the  common  foe,  and  for  others  who  would 
dedicate  their  lives  and  give  up  all,  who  would  go  forth  to  be 
despised  and  counted  as  fools,  who  would  unsheathe  their 
swords  and  never  put  them  by  again  until  God  called  or  truth 
prevailed. 

I  can  outline  that  speech  today.  The  orator  opened  his  own 
soul,  and  stripping  my  heart  of  every  little  thing  I  looked  in. 
What  I  saw  I  cannot  tell,  but  I  turned  away — changed.  From 
that  night  to  this  hour  I  have  not  failed  to  see  the  dawn  of 
National  Prohibition — the  day  when  the  river  of  rum  shall 
be  dry  at  its  source ;  when  women  shall  no  longer  weep ;  when 
children  shall  no  longer  be  hungry  and  naked,  perverted, 
imbecile  and  blind,  and  when  there  shall  be  no  unborn  because 
of  drink ;  the  day  w^hen  the  mind  of  genius,  unclouded  by  drink, 
shall  be  clear  to  conceive,  and  the  hand  of  labor,  unpalsied  by 
liquor,  shall  be  strong  to  build;  the  day  when  the  alcohol 
frenzied  traffic  in  women  and  girls  shall  be  as  Nero's  human 
torches — a  hideous  memory — and  when  the  maudlin  shout  of 
the  drunkard  shall  be  heard,  forever,  nowhere  in  the  land ;  the 
day  of  political  emancipation  from  the  bondage  of  the  saloon ; 
the  day  when  this  government  shall  be  free  from  partnership 
with  the  liquor  traffic ;  the  day  when  stainless  ballots  shall 
have  achieved  a  stainless  flag.  Then  shall  be  the  consummation 
of  a  New  Freedom  for  all  the  sons  of  men ! 


194 


IRA  LANDRITH 


IRA  LANDRITH  is  a  Texan— big  in  body,  big  in  mind— 
"a  man  of  many  inches,  and  every  inch  a  man."  For 
twenty-one  years  he  has  been  Chairman  of  the  Tennessee 
State  Committee  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  was  President  of 
the  last  International  Convention.  He  was  one  of  the  fomid- 
ers  of  the  Tennessee  Anti-Saloon  League,  and  has  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  State  Executive  Committee  since  the  League's  in- 
ception. He  was  Chairman  of  the  Nashville  Committee  of 
One  Hundred  that  at  one  time  cleansed  municipal  politics  in 
the  city  of  Nashville.  He  has  long  been  a  member  of  the 
International  Board  of  the  United  Society  of  Christian  En- 
deavor. He  was  the  first  General  Secretary  of  the  National 
Religious  Educational  Association,  and  of  the  Presbyterian 
Brotherhood,  and  has  held  the  highest  office  in  the  church, 
the  Moderatorship  of  the  General  Assembly. 

With  Dr.  Henry  B.  Grose  he  wrote  the  prohibition  cam- 
paign slogan  of  the  great  Christian  Endeavor  movement  at 
the  Atlantic  City  Convention — "A  Saloonless  Nation  by  1920, 
the  three  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  Pil- 
grims." 

He  was  for  years  editor  of  one  of  the  important  papers  of 
his  church  and  was  until  recently  President  of  Ward-Belmont 
College. 

Beginning  at  Peoria  on  the  30th  of  September,  he  partici- 
pated in  the  Squadron  campaign  to  its  close  at  Atlantic  City, 
on  June  6th,  and  was  leader  of  the  Second  Division  from 
Evansville  to  Atlantic  City.  His  work  on  the  platform  is  tre- 
mendous. He  was  also  closely  associated  with  the  Executive 
Committee  in  the  management  of  the  campaign. 

Courageous,  consecrated  and  militant,  he  wrought  with  the 
hand  of  a  master. 


[197] 


THE  THREE-FOLD   MISSION   OF  THE  FLYING 
SQUADRON. 

I  BRING  you  glad  tidings  of  great  joy.  You  are  living  in 
the  last  decade  of  the  life  of  the  legalized  liquor  traffic 
in  the  United  States  of  America. 
This  is  no  "dream  of  a  dreamer  who  dreams  that  he  dreams." 
I  neither  wear  long  hair,  rave  over  pale-faced  Luna,  nor  write 
poetry.  I  am  no  pessimist  however;  if  my  waist  measure 
did  not  preclude  the  possibility  of  pessimism  on  any  subject, 
my  experience  and  observation  on  prohibition  would  still  make 
me  an  optimist  for  a  saloonless  land.  For  it  will  be  easier  now 
to  dry  up  the  whole  country  than  it  has  been  to  secure  and 
enforce  prohibition  in  my  own  Tennessee,  or  any  other  one  of 
the  eighteen  states  that  have  had  too  much  patriotism  and 
common  civic  intelligence  and  integrity  to  remain  longer  in 
blood-guilty  partnership  with  brewers  and  distillers  and  their 
galley  slaves,  the  saloon  keepers.  Every  State  that  has  ban- 
ished the  barroom  has  had  to  conquer  a  continent  to  do  it. 
No  liquor  maker,  liquor  seller,  or  liquor  dealers'  association 
has  kept  off  the  wrong  side  of  any  battle  we  have  thus  far 
waged  and  won.  We  whipped  them  all  from  Milwaukee  and 
Peoria  and  Cincinnati  to  both  oceans,  and  we  did  it  single- 
handed,  when  we  endeavored  to  exercise,  in  behalf  of  sobriety, 
the  boasted  privilege  of  self-government ;  and  today  these  dry 
States  have  little  left  to  do  except  to  help  you  finish  the  task 
of  national  house-cleaning. 

I  had  a  night  letter  from  my  wife  last  October.  The  Flying 
Squadron  was  away  out  in  California  where  she  wired  me,  in 
effect,  "We  have  moved  since  you  left,  and  it  has  taken  six 
of  us  two  days  to  get  cleaned  and  ready  for  safe  and  sanitary 
occupancy  the  house  you  leased  for  us."  They  always  move 
after  I  leave  if  I  know  exactly  when  they  are  going  to  move. 
Probably  I  ought  to  explain  that  we  didn't  move  because  I 
hadn't  paid  the  rent— I  had  only  just  joined  the  Flying  Squad- 

[199] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ron  then !  We  moved  because  we  had  been  Hving  in  a  flat 
and  we  desired  a  home.  We  have  never  been  able  to  make  a 
real  home  in  an  apartment  house,  have  you  ?  I  have  been  told 
that  prairie  dogs  can  dwell  in  harmony  with  a  variety  of 
neighbors  in  the  same  den,  but  there  is  no  ideal  home  without 
sacred  domestic  privacy,  and  that  is  impossible  where  people 
walk  over  your  head,  listen  to  your  telephone  and  help  them- 
selves to  your  back  porch  tinware.  But  the  significant  part 
of  that  lettergram  was  the  mental  picture  it  suggested  of  my 
wife  and  daughter  down  on  their  knees  patiently  scratching 
grease  out  of  the  cracks,  applying  widely  advertised  cleaning 
materials  and  disinfectants,  for  that  house  had  been  previously 
occupied  by  other  gentle  people,  who  moved  out  the  day  before 
and  left  for  their  successors  a  job  lot  of  variegated  germs — 
just  as  you  and  we  did  last  moving  day.  Should  I  ever  run 
for  a  seat  in  the  legislature — as  I  shall  never  do  in  Tennessee, 
where,  in  an  effort  to  insure  the  immortality  of  the  saloon 
curse,  the  makers  of  our  antique  constitution  provided  that  no 
minister  of  the  gospel  may  sit  in  the  legislature — I  shall  advo- 
cate a  law  making  it  the  duty  of  every  would-be  mover  to  clean 
the  house  before  he  moves  out. 

To  illustrate :  I  was  for  fourteen  years  the  editor  of  a 
church  weekly — spelt  w-e-a-k-1-y  during  my  administration. 
Among  my  exchanges  was  another  old  Presbyterian  newspaper. 
Like  my  own  it  was  old  the  day  it  was  printed.  It  is  to  be 
doubted  whether  anybody  ever  read  it  at  all  except  the  editor 
and  the  proofreader,  and  the  proofreader  was  in  a  hurry.  But 
I  read  one  two-column  editorial  on  Heaven.  Editorials  and 
sermons  on  Heaven  are  always  safe,  for  nobody  knows  any 
more  about  Heaven  than  we  do.  Sermons  on  this  theme  con- 
stitute the  stock  in  trade  of  the  preacher  who  revels  in  the 
line  of  least  resistance,  which,  by  the  way,  is  never  the  straight 
and  narrow  way.  This  dismally  dull  editor  closed  his  text- 
bereft  old  sermon-editorial  with  some  such  climax  as  "Heaven 
is  our  home.     This  earth  is  only  a  tenement  house."     Verily ; 

[200] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

but  since  this  old  earth  is  but  a  tenement  house,  do  you  not 
agree  that  the  present  generation  of  tenants  ought  to  clean 
it  up  before  the  next  generation  moves  in? 

It  is  just  this  that  we  are  getting  ready  to  do,  and  nobody 
knows  it  better  than  do  the  liquor  leaders  themselves.  More 
brewery  money  is  being  invested  in  real  estate  and  less  in 
brewing  machinery  than  ever  before ;  and  distillery  stock  has 
never  been  such  a  drug  on  the  market  as  it  is  just  now. 

But  somebody  had  to  go  to  the  whole  country  and  preach 
the  statesmanlike  gospel,  "The  liquor  business  can  be  killed," 
for  some  good  people  as  well  as  all  bad  people  had  to  be  con- 
vinced that  there  are  no  necessary  evils ;  that  if  a  thing  is 
necessary  it  is  not  evil,  and  if  it  is  evil  it  is  not  necessary. 
Once  satisfy  self-respecting  American  voters  that  God  is  omni- 
potent and  that,  therefore,  the  saloon  is  not  immortal,  and 
every  one  of  them  will  make  haste  to  fire  at  the  fiend  the  fatal 
ballot.  I  decline  to  believe  that  any  man  who  half  deserves 
to  be  called  a  man  will  vote  to  license  the  liquor  traffic  after 
he  has  learned  that  it  can  be  annihilated.  Everybody  knows 
that  the  saloon  makes  drunkards  of  boys  and  harlots  of  girls 
and  hells  of  happy  homes;  and  no  man  who  has  any  self- 
respect  will  vote  to  license  a  business  that  is  bound  to  ruin 
other  men's  sons  and  daughters  when  his  own  are  not  for 
sale ;  and  no  man  who  is  not  essentially  an  undesirable  citizen 
will  barter  the  peace,  purity,  and  happiness  of  anybody's  home, 
not  even  his  own.  The  only  way  in  which  the  rum  power  has 
retained  its  hold  on  this  Republic  has  been  by  repeating  till 
we  come  to  credit  the  utterance,  that  ancient  heresy,  "The 
saloon  is  here  to  stay.  Why  not  let  it  pay  our  taxes  ?"  To  per- 
petuate this,  the  only  so-called  argument  to  which  respectable 
people  have  ever  seriously  listened,  the  manufacturers  of  beer, 
wines  and  whisky  have  endeavored  by  every  foul,  and  no 
fair,  method  to  nullify  local  and  state  prohibition  everywhere, 
confident  that  the  only  hope  of  the  traffic's  continued  existence 

[201] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

is  to  see  to  it  that  prohibition  shall  never  demonstrate  in  en- 
tirety its  financial,  cultural,  and  ethical  beneficence. 

At  last  the  silly  falsehood,  "More  liquor  sold  in  dry  territory 
than  in  wet,"  has  ceased  to  deceive  even  the  non-elect,  and 
Maine  and  Kansas,  the  dry  South,  and  the  rapidly  drying  West 
are  proving  the  prosperity-producing  efficacy  of  local  prohibi- 
tion, and  the  righteous  retribution  so  long  overdue  is  about 
to  descend  upon  the  gory  head  of  King  Alcohol. 

This  is  made  the  more  certain,  and  its  swift  coming  the  more 
sure,  because  the  mere  time-serving  slave  of  policy  and  popu- 
larity is  now  satisfied  that  prohibition  is  going  to  come.  It  was 
Charles  Kingsley  who  once  divided  the  human  race  into  "good 
people  and  bad  people  and  either-good-or-bad  people."  Our 
government  has  immeasurably  less  reason  to  fear  its  bad  citi- 
zens than  it  has  to  dread  its  "either-neither  good-or-bad."  Bad 
men  are  in  the  minority  and  both  their  strength  and  their 
courage  have  been  overestimated.  It  is  never  the  ballots  of 
the  bad,  but  always  the  suffrage  of  the  near-good,  and  the 
political  indolence  of  the  upright,  that  make  it  appear  that 

"Right's   forever   on   the   scaffold. 
Wrong's  forever  on  the  throne," 

so  many  there  are  who  would  rather  be  right  than  wrong,  but 
would  still  rather  win  than  be  right.  These  mollusks,  not 
because  they  are  personally  worth  bothering  with,  but  because 
their  votes  count  as  much  as  do  the  ballots  of  real  people,  have 
to  be  made  to  see  that  prohibition  is  going  to  succeed  without 
them,  whereupon  they  will  take  front  seats  on  the  water  wagon, 
which  is  now  a  synonym  for  the  band  wagon,  and  there  they 
will  lustily  sing,  as  if  they  were  the  original  Neal  Dows  plus 
Carrie  Nation, 

"This  is  the  way  I  long  have  sought 
And  mourned  because  I  found  it  not." 
[202] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

It  was  in  no  small  degree  for  the  purpose  of  telling  these 
victims  of  vascillation,  these  pitiable  serfs  of  opportunism, 
that  we  no  longer  need  them,  that  the  Flying  Squadron  under- 
took its  Titan  task  of  telling  the  people  of  every  political  and 
almost  every  commercial  and  educational  center  on  the  map 
of  the  United  States — 

1.  That  the  liquor  traffic  ought  to  die; 

2.  That  it  can  be  killed  ; 

3.  That  the  quick  and  sure  way  to  kill  it  is  to  get  together 
and  strike  the  one  fatal  blow,  National  Constitutional  Pro- 
hibition. 

This  has  been  the  three- fold  burden  of  every  address  we 
have  delivered  and  of  every  song  we  have  sung ;  and  it  is  not 
too  much  to  hope  that  we  have  had  some  small  part  in  the 
evident,  almost  universal  judgment  that,  to  quote  the  words 
of  the  brilliant  martyr  statesman  of  my  own  Tennessee,  the 
late  United  States  Senator  Edward  Ward  Carmack,  "The 
saloon  has  sinned  away  its  day  of  grace." 

Not  only  is  it  true  that  we  are  going  to  win — we  have  won. 
Twice  as  many  commonwealths  are  in  the  State-wide  prohibi- 
tion column  as  were  there  when  the  Flying  Squadron  began 
its  propaganda,  eight  months  ago,  on  September  30,  1914;  but 
in  dry  territory  now.  State-wide,  no-license  and  local  option 
communities,  there  are  enough  presidential  electoral  votes  to 
name  a  president  of  the  United  States ;  and  it  is  high  time 
a  democratic — with  a  lower  case  "d" — people  bravely  and 
bluntly  and  authoritatively  said  to  an  arrogant,  liquor  satu- 
rated minority,  "No  longer  shall  the  wet  tail  wag  the  dry  dog." 

But  it  has  been  a  furious  fight.  Every  day's  forward  march 
of  the  army  of  the  Lord  for  fifty  years  of  this  crusade  has 
been  hotly  contested  by  the  cohorts  of  hell.  No  ground  has 
been  gained  except  at  tremendous  sacrifice  of  those  who  share 
with  Phillips  Brooks  the  creed,  "No  man  has  come  to  true 
greatness  who  has  not  felt,  in  some  degree,  that  his  life  belongs 
to  his  race,  and  that  what  God  gives,  he  gives  for  mankind." 

[203] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Political  ignorance  had  to  be  informed.  Political  indolence 
had  to  be  aroused  and  kept  awake.  Political  slavery  had  to 
be  abolished  and  political  independence  enthroned.  Political 
dishonesty  had  to  be  uncovered  and  rebuked,  and  political  in- 
tegrity sceptered  and  crowned — and  all  this  has  taken  time 
and  intrepidity,  for  political  impatience  and  cowardice  were 
neither  the  last  nor  the  least  of  the  enemies  to  be  conquered 
on  the  way  to  a  stainless  flag. 

But  it  was  the  very  difficulty,  the  danger  of  this  warfare, 
that  made  the  victory  secure.  Real  men  and  women  love  a 
fine  fight.  Genuine  courage  never  picks  quarrels  with  weak- 
lings ;  nor  stops  to  participate  in  the  back  alley  brawls  of  street 
gamin.  The  reason  the  churches  have  sometimes  failed  to  ap- 
peal successfully  to  virile  men  among  men,  is  because  some  of 
these  churches  do  not  attack  men's-size  tasks,  or  go  out  to  do 
battle  with  the  iniquities  that  most  hurt  and  hinder  men.  Every 
sign  of  the  times  grows  more  and  more  enheartening,  for  the 
war  is  now  on  between  the  church  of  God  and  the  saloon  of 
Satan.  One  or  the  other  must  go,  and  the  church  is  God's 
organized  omnipotence  on  earth,  so  the  saloon  must  go.  Al- 
ways it  has  been  true,  and  the  truth  is  now  plain,  that  the 
church  of  God  could  do  what  it  would  if  it  would  do  what  it 
could. 

I  thank  God  for  the  impending  struggle,  the  irrepressible 
conflict,  between  organized  vice  and  organized  virtue ;  and 
that,  too,  not  alone  because  in  every  such  contest  right  must 
triumph,  but  because  of  the  high  character  that  the  contest 
itself  will  develop  in  the  youth  of  America,  and  because  of  the 
great  revival  of  pure  religion  and  the  great  evangelistic  results 
in  the  salvation  of  souls  that  must  follow  the  destruction  of 
this  the  one  most  successful  of  all  the  hindrances  to  the  salva- 
tion of  souls  and  the  growth  of  the  church  of  Christ. 

But  let  nobody  undervalue  the  awful  brutality  to  be  met 
with  in  this  war,  nor  treat  too  lightly  the  fact  that  the  foe  has 
no  virtue  of  his  own  and  respects  none  in  an  adversary.    Ex- 

[204] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

pect  no  mercy  and  give  no  quarter.    There  is  no  middle  ground 
between  good  and  bad,  no  conservative  position  between  right 
and  wrong,  no  Hague  Tribunal  between  God  and  the  Devil. 
Recognize  as  your  cause's  worst  enemy  the  miserable  man  of 
influence  who  for  business,  social  or  political  advantage  pro- 
fesses neutrality,  for  "he  who  is  not  with  us  is  against  us." 
Keep    a    ballot-loaded    gun    steadily    on    the    politician    who 
preaches  the  worn-out  heterodoxy,  "My  party  right  or  wrong," 
for  he  only  is  a  worthy  member  of  any  political  organization, 
who  acts  upon  the  principle,  "My  party  right,  not  wrong." 
Parley  not   at  all  with  the  puny  pulpiteer  who  deliberately 
takes  aim  at  nothing,  fires  away  and  hits  it ;  the  clerical  coward 
whose  pulpit  perishes  in  pleasing,  ponderous,  pointless,  pur- 
poseless, politic  platitudes ;  for  if  he  is  anything  worth  while, 
a  preacher  is  a  specialist  in  morals,  an  expert  in  right  and 
wrong,  and  on  a  moral  question  like  this  he  should  be  the  first 
to  speak  out  and  not  the  last  to  find  his  voice.    The  true  am- 
bassador of  Him  who  "came  to  destroy  the  works  of  the 
devil"  does  not  need  to  be  told  that  his  Master's  mission  must 
remain  forever  unfinished  until  the  saloons,  the  devil's  prin- 
cipal workshops,  are  also  destroyed  to  the  last  stone  and  splin- 
ter.    On  moral  questions  even  in  politics,  the  true  preacher  is 
an  expert,  a  specialist,  and  he  has  no  right,  when  such  ques- 
tions arise,  to  "stay  out  of  politics."     It  is  the  venal  voter, 
the  unscrupulous  creature  who  looks  on  the  ballot,  his  own 
or  another's,  as  merchandise  who  "ought  to  keep  out  of  poli- 
tics";  and  the  preacher  who  declines  to  take  sides  between 
right  and  wrong  ought  to  unfrock  himself,  don  overalls  and  go 
to  following  a  plowman's  mule — which  is  the  meanest  thing 
I   could  say  about  a  mule! 

God  grant  that  this  may  prove  a  bloodless  war,  for  bloody 
wars  are  horrible,  but  at  whatever  cost  there  must  be  the 
overcoming  of  evil  with  good.  There  can  be  no  compromise, 
no  peace  negotiations.  When  right  meets  right  and  justice 
meets  justice,  as  in  the  war  in  Europe,  we  may  pray  for  peace ; 

[205] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

but  when  right  meets  wrong,  when  the  church  of  God  meets 
in  deadly  combat  the  liquor  traffic  of  the  devil,  we  cannot 
even  pray  for  peace — we  have  to  fight  for  peace  and  pray  for 
victory. 

It  was  a  beautiful  racial  fraternity  that  sent  the  American 
church  to  its  knees  to  pray  for  peace  among  the  warring  na- 
tions beyond  the  Atlantic.  It  was  at  once  the  least  we  could 
do  and  the  most,  for  it  was  all  we  could  do.  As  we  look  back 
across  the  weary  months  of  waiting  for  God's  answer  to  our 
prayers  for  peace  in  Europe,  we  can  almost  hear  Him  say, 
"My  impatient  American  children,  the  trouble  is  that  you  are 
always  in  a  hurry  and  I  never  am.  You  shall  have  peace  in 
Europe,  the  lesser  good  for  w^hich  you  asked ;  but  when  I  be- 
stow upon  you  this  boon,  it  must  be  a  peace  that  is  permanent 
and  honorable;  and  while  I  am  at  it,  I  am  going  to  give  you 
peace  in  all  the  world  by  helping  you  forever  to  destroy  in 
America  the  peace-hating  liquor  traffic,  and  then,  with  Amer- 
ica's sober  leadership  of  the  other  nations,  to  cleanse  the  whole 
earth  of  this  arch  enemy  of  the  welfare  of  mankind."  That 
great  woman  author  was  right  who  lately  said  in  the  prints  of 
Europe,  "It  is  horrible  to  see  the  scholars  of  Berlin  and  the 
artists  of  Paris  being  converted  into  fertilizer  for  Belgian 
fields."  As  long  ago  as  General  Sherman's  day  of  milder 
mannered  warfare,  that  hero  of  blood  and  iron  called  war 
"hell" ;  but  in  its  unthinkable  present-day  fiendishness  war  can 
no  longer  be  compared  to  even  hell,  for  surely  hell  has  no  fury 
like  that  which  every  cablegram  attributes  nowadays  to  the 
wanton  war  god  in  Europe.  But  who  shall  say  that  the  price 
has  been  too  high  if  out  of  the  mud  and  blood  and  black  dark- 
ness of  it  all  He  who  "maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise 
Him"  shall  use  this  unexampled  racial  disaster  as  a  means  to 
the  end  of  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  rum,  a  bloody  demon 
in  comparison  with  whose  murderous  character  Mars  at  his 
meanest  is  a  philanthropist. 

Consenting  together,  then,  that  this  crime  of  the  ages  against 

[206] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

humanity,  the  legalizing  of  the  cause  of  all  kinds  of  crime, 
ought  to  be  abolished,  and  that  abolition  is  not  impossible, 
nothing  remains  to  be  added  except  the  answer  to  the  age-old 
question,  "How  kill  it?"  The  reply  is  easy— just  unite  and 
kill  it,  that  is  all.  It  would  have  been  dead  a  generation  ago  in 
this  Republic  if  all  its  foes  had  been  friends  to  each  other, 
and  if  we  had  not  dissipated  our  energies  by  quibbling  over 
methods.  Even  yet  sincere  people  are  not  all  agreed  about 
where  to  strike  the  fatal  blow,  or  when,  or  with  what  par- 
ticular weapon,  but  there  should  be  no  dissension  among  us 
on  the  point  that  the  eternally  fatal  blow  in  this  Republic  is 
the  one  the  Flying  Squadron  and  other  organizations  now  pro- 
pose, the  Federal  constitutional  abolition  of  the  manufacture, 
sale,  importation  and  transportation  of  intoxicating  liquors  in 
the  United  States  of  America.  Let  us  ignore  for  the  time 
our  differences,  emphasize  our  agreements,  lift  the  white  flag 
amongst  warring  brethren,  raise  the  black  banner  against  the 
universal  foe,  and  fight  King  Alcohol,  not  only  to  his  uncrown- 
ing, but  to  his  eternal  doom.  Anti-Saloon  League  and  Pro- 
hibition Party,  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  and 
Church  Temperance  Societies  and  every  other  league  offensive 
or  defensive  that  has  for  its  object  the  salvation  of  a  soul  from 
drunkenness,  or  the  rescuing  of  a  child,  or  a  wife,  or  a  mother, 
or  a  home,  from  the  evils  of  drink,  must  now  demonstrate  its 
right  to  live  by  dwelling  together  with  all  the  others  of  like 
benevolence  in  peace  and  unity  on  this  final  issue.  It  is  gratify- 
ing to  be  able  to  testify,  too,  that  the  members  of  all  of  these 
organizations  have  stood  by  the  Flying  Squadron  and  its 
propaganda.  With  what  may  almost  be  said  to  be  negligible 
and  inconsequential  exceptions,  we  have  had  the  support  of 
every  temperance  movement  in  the  field.  And  why  not?  We 
have  kept  our  pledge,  voluntarily  made  from  the  beginning, 
to  be  the  helper  of  all  and  the  competitor  of  none.  We  were 
doing  nothing  but  educational  and  evangelistic  work,  never 

[207] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

organizing  anything,  because  there  were  already  organizations 
enough,  if  indeed  there  were  not  some  to  spare. 

It  would  not  be  insidious,  in  making  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  generous  aid  and  of  the  sympathetic  and  effective 
fraternity  of  all  other  temperance  movements,  to  speak  in 
particular  praise  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union,  which  has  stood  by  our  appeal  in  every  State  but  one 
in  the  Union.  Wisely  they  have  accepted  the  dictum  of  the 
late  Sam.  P.  Jones,  "When  a  mule  pulls  your  way  you  pull 
with  him,  even  if  he  is  only  a  mule."  To  its  co-operative  spirit 
the  temperance  cause  among  women  owes  a  large  measure  of 
its  superlative  worth  and  usefulness. 

Similar  solidarity  among  the  churches  would  instantly  solve 
the  problems  of  prohibition,  and  this  too  is  almost  at  hand. 
Sectarian  sin  has  too  long  postponed  the  salvation  of  America 
from  its  besetting  sin. 

"  'There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy 
Like  the  wideness  of  the  sea' ; 
There's  a  narrowness  in  man's  meanness 
Just  as  narrow  as  it  can  be." 

Denominationalism  is  by  no  means  an  unmixed  good,  but 
bitter  sectarian  warfare  is  a  wholly  unmixed  evil.  If  we  had 
saved  all  of  the  ammunition  we  have  shot  at  each  other  over 
water  and  predestination  and  foreordination  and  the  perse- 
verance of  saints  and  falling  from  grace  and  apostolic  suc- 
cession and  a  score  of  other  divisive  things  that  do  not  mean 
anything  in  this  world,  and  won't  mean  anything  in  the  world 
to  come — and  note  that  as  a  Presbyterian  I  have  included 
three  of  my  pet  doctrines  and  only  one  of  yours  in  this 
list  of  non-essentials  to  salvation — if  we  had  saved  all  this 
ammunition  and  had  turned  our  guns  on  the  enemy  we 
should  have  had  the  devil  on  the  run  a  generation  ago. 
The  day  is  over  when  intelligent  people  are  willing  to  listen 

[208] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

patiently  to  the  preachments  of  him  who  shouts,  "The  only 
way  to  Heaven  is  through  my  particular  little  ecclesiastical 
wicket  gate" ;  and  the  day  is  gone  forever  when  one  can 
make  more  than  a  solo  of  the  pathetic  parody, 

I  love  my  kingdom,  Lord, 

The  house  of  mine  abode; 
But  other  churches  I  despise. 

For  they're  on  the  downward  road. 

Nor  is  this  a  plea  for  premature  church  unions,  anxious 
as  I  am  for  the  unity  of  the  people  of  God.  Neither  is  it  a 
sneer  at  church  love  and  loyalty. 

To  thine  own  church  be  true ; 

And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day. 
Thou  cans't  not  then  be  false  to  any  church. 

But  no  man  proves  his  devotion  to  his  own  home  by 
slandering  all  other  households. 

Down  in  my  loved  Dixie  land  in  the  troublous  "sixties"  the 
devoutest  of  all  devout  Confederate  generals  arose  from  his 
knees  one  May  evening,  stole  forth  with  a  company  of  his 
picked  men  that  he  might  see  how  lay  the  enemy  and  on 
the  morrow  strike  the  deadliest  possible  blow.  So  deadly, 
too,  were  the  blows  he  used  to  strike  that  one  can  hardly 
refrain  from  wondering  what  might  have  been  the  map 
of  America  but  for  the  tragic  accident  of  that  night ;  for 
as  he  returned  stealthily  through  his  own  lines  he  was 
mistaken  in  the  shadows  for  a  foe ;  there  was  a  terrible 
tattoo  of  musketry  and  "Stonewall"  Jackson  lay  dying, 
shot  to  death  by  his  own  men !  Two  of  his  slayers  went 
insane  for  sheer  grief  over  their  awful  blunder.  Nobody 
would  have  had  so  true  a  soldier  die  like  that.  North  as 
well  as  South  mourned  the  manner  of  that  fighter's  taking 

[209] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

off.  In  fitter  phrase  than  mine  his  former  foes  have  paid 
tribute  to  the  courage  and  genius  of  the  schoolmaster  hero 
of  Virginia,  hence  I  do  not  need  to  stop  to  praise  this 
Southern  general.  The  melancholy  incident  has  been  re- 
called solely  for  the  purpose  of  adding  that  we  have  all 
seen  a  thousand  heroes  slain  by  their  own  men — shot  to 
death,  not  by  accident,  but,  alas !  by  deliberate,  often  ma- 
licious, design,  and  not  with  merciful  bullets,  but  by  tor- 
turing, brutish,  fiendish  calumny  and  criticism  and  sus- 
picion and  cowardly  innuendo,  and  all  because  these  victims 
of  prejudice  and  jealousy  did  not  belong  to  our  church,  or 
shout  our  pitifully  small  shibboleths,  or  fight  under  the 
narrow  banner  of  our  religious  or  temperance  organization. 

When  will  Nation-wide  prohibition  come  in  America? 
Within  a  single  year  after  we  quit  shooting  our  Stonewall 
Jacksons,  or  have  forever  repudiated  the  leadership  of  those 
who  do  shoot  our  Stonewall  Jacksons. 

And  the  country  is  ready  for  both  blessings. 


[210] 


A  MESSAGE  FROM  THE  NEW  SOUTH. 

IF  self-defense  is  the  first  law  of  nature,  the  liquor  traffic 
is  doomed.  It  opposes  everything  for  which  decency  and 
altruism  stand.  To  the  extent  that  virtue  succeeds,  vice 
fails;  and  just  to  the  degree  that  the  liquor  traffic  prospers, 
righteousness  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  must  fail.  "He 
began  on  me  first"  has  long  been  the  adequate  justification 
of  every  conquest  over  a  ruffian.  The  liquor  traffic  must 
die  because  it  "began  on"  us  first. 

Do  you  love  little  children  ?  If  you  do,  you  must  fight 
the  saloon,  for  it  is  childhood's  most  conscienceless  foe. 
If  you  stand  for  the  church  and  the  school  you  are  bound 
to  array  yourself  against  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  in- 
toxicating liquors  because  the  distillery  and  the  brewery 
and  the  barroom  are  the  foul  triplets  in  murderous  con- 
spiracy against  the  interests  of  the  school  and  the  church. 
Are  you  concerned  for  the  public  health  and  the  public 
morals?  Then  as  a  first  means  to  the  end  you  desire,  you 
must  eradicate  the  liquor  business,  for  it  thrives  on  physical 
malady  and  social  vice,  and  it  is  never  more  prosperous 
than  where  the  Decalogue  is  a  hissing  and  the  Golden  Rule 
a  by-word. 

Are  you  an  exponent  of  the  homely  virtues  of  honesty, 
industry,  unselfishness  and  purity?  Good.  But  the  way  to 
grow  wholesome  crops  is  first  to  kill  unwholesome  weeds ; 
and  the  weeds  that  surely  choke  out  these  virtues  are  the 
saloons  and  their  allies. 

If  the  grogshop's  till  overflows  it  is  because  it  has  emp- 
tied its  patron's  purse,  paralyzed  his  usefulness,  destroyed 
his  honor,  debased  his  character,  and  brutalized  his  nobler 
nature.  Nor  has  the  dealer  himself  gained  anything  but 
gold  in  the  process.  He  may  have  gained  the  whole  world 
of  wealth,  but  he  has  lost  his  own  soul — the  soul  of  his  self- 
respect,  the  soul  of  his  family's  pride  in  him,  the  soul  of  the 

[2111 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

social  position  of  his  household,  the  soul  of  that  high  thing 
in  Tnanhood  that  answers  joyously  in  the  affirmative  the 
humanity-old  question,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 

Do  you  love  your  country?  Then  you  must  hate  the 
saloon,  your  country's  shame.  For  under  the  flag  of  Lib- 
erty, America  has  legalized  slavery  to  drink ;  in  this  land  of 
the  free  and  home  of  the  brave  vv^e  have  accepted  blood- 
money  in  exchange  for  freedom  and  courage ;  and  under  our 
blessed  Magna  Charta,  which  entitles  us  all  to  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  we  have  legalized  the  rum- 
murderer  of  men,  women  and  children ;  sold  to  serfdom  the 
offspring  of  drunken  fathers  and  mothers,  and  substituted 
for  the  pursuit  of  happiness  the  pursuing  of  despair.  Our 
boastful  assurance  to  every  babe  born  under  the  stars  and 
stripes  that  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal  has  become 
an  alcohol-befouled  myth;  since  the  inherently  weak  child 
of  inebriety  cannot  be  free  ;  and  in  the  race  of  life  he  can 
never  hope  to  be  the  equal  of  his  neighbor's  untainted  son. 

Let  any  man  come  into  your  community,  breathing  out 
threatenings  and  slaughter  against  your  churches  and 
schools,  your  homes  and  children,  your  peace  and  pros- 
perity, your  city  and  state,  your  freedom  and  flag,  and  you 
would  make  short  work  of  him,  by  law  if  possible,  by  vio- 
lence if  necessary.  All  this  and  more  the  saloon  keeper 
down  the  street  is  doing  every  day  under  the  sanction  of 
the  government  and  with  the  protection  and  patronage 
of  the  police.  And  for  what?  Money — just  money!  When 
men  take  their  ballots  into  the  market  place,  we  call  them 
criminals.  When  women  make  commerce  of  humanity's 
holiest  heritage,  we  call  them  harlots.  But  when  a  great 
government  for  mere  gain  traffics  in  'manhood  and  trades 
in  womanhood  and  makes  chattels  out  of  childhood,  we 
soften  such  ugly  names  as  bribery  and  harlotry  into  that 
shameful  euphemism,  "Internal  Revenue !" 

But  long,  long  ago  the  promise  of  deliverance  was  re- 

[212] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ceived,  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
you  free."  Freedom  is  in  sight,  coming  fast,  and  by  strange 
ways.  Erstwhile  we  looked  to  the  East  for  our  Star  of 
Hope.  On  the  wings  of  the  morning  came  the  spirit  of 
Emancipation.  Today  we  must  scan  the  horizon  to  the 
South  and  the  West  for  the  signs  of  our  civic  salvation.  In 
the  providence  of  God,  the  section  once  cursed  by  African 
slavery  is  to  have  the  eternal  honor  of  breaking  for  its 
own  former  foes  the  chains  of  a  more  galling  slavery  than 
the  plantation  Negro  of  the  South  ever  knew.  We  owned 
only  the  bodies  of  our  slaves.  Mentally  and  spiritually 
they  were  as  free  as  the  mocking  birds  that  sang  in  their 
magnolia  trees.  The  liquor  trafific  owns  its  victims — mind, 
soul  and  body,  home  and  wife  and  child ;  and  often,  alas, 
also  city  and  state  and  nation.  In  comparison  with  liquor 
African  slavery  was  a  Christian  benevolence.  Yet  South- 
ern slavery  deserved  to  die,  and  if  it  could  have  been  anni- 
hilated in  no  better  way,  the  cost  of  its  death  was  none  too 
high.  The  South  is  unanimous  in  its  satisfaction  over  the 
fact  that  African  slavery  is  no  more.  But  the  South  has 
acquired  the  emancipating  habit.  Having  freed  her  Ne- 
groes at  the  more  or  less  mild-mannered  solicitation  of 
her  Northern  neighbors,  the  South  has  freed  her  "white 
folks,"  and  in  the  spirit  of  proverbial  Southern  hospitality  is 
now  packing  her  baggage  with  ballots  and  benevolence  to 
"pay  back"  the  half-century-ago  visit  of  her  Northern 
neighbors.  We  owe  you  that,  dear  brethren  of  the  North, 
and  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  help  of  the  rapidly  drying 
West,  we'll  pay  you  what  we  owe.  The  emancipated  will 
soon  emancipate  their  own  emancipators  with  a  greater  and 
more  far-reaching  emancipation  than  was  ever  dreamed  of 
by  the  great  emancipator  of  that  emancipation  of  the  six- 
ties ! 

That  our  constitutional  invasion  of  the  liquor-enslaved 
North  and  East,  the   former  "free  territory"  of  this  Re- 

[213] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

public,  will  be  welcomed  by  the  best  citizenship  north  of 
the  Ohio  and  east  of  the  Mississippi,  is  beyond  the  long 
reach  of  doubt.  In  common  consistency,  too,  you  of  the 
North  will  be  quick  to  silence  the  Northerner  who  would 
now  disinter  the  broken  weapons  of  "State  Sovereignty" 
in  a  vain  effort  to  convert  them  into  some  sort  of  flaming 
sword  of  local  self-government  for  the  protection  of  the 
decadent  liquor  trafific.  You  shot  "States'  rights"  out  of 
us  in  1865,  and  we  Southern  nationalists  are  going  to  vote 
that  heresy  out  of  you  by  1920.  If  local  self-government 
could  not  settle  chattel  slavery,  which  was  comparatively 
a  sectional  question,  it  is  far  too  puny  an  agency  to  invoke 
against  the  Nation-wide  crime  of  whisky  slavery. 

Nor  can  the  Halloween  scare-face  of  governmental  cen- 
tralization serve  longer  to  frighten  grown  up  American 
citizens  into  an  attitude  of  cowardly  toleration  of  the  vastly 
greater  menace  of  liquor  domination.  A  government  that 
has  the  right  to  collect  revenue  from  a  vicious  traffic  has 
the  power  to  exterminate  that  trafific,  and  no  skulking  behind 
the  sovereignty  of  a  constituent  state  will  serve  to  hide  the 
bloodstains  on  the  Republic's  own  guilty  hands. 

Nobody  knew  that  better  than  did  Abraham  Lincoln, 
your  Lincoln — and  ours ;  for  men  like  Lincoln  and  Lee, 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  Ulysses  S.  Grant  grow  too  tall  in 
half  a  century  of  peace  to  be  monopolized  by  one  section 
of  this  united  land.  If  the  testimony  of  his  intimates  is 
to  be  trusted,  in  1862,  when  to  raise  war  revenue  for  the 
promotion  of  human  freedom,  the  American  Congress  sold 
to  saloonists  our  national  liberty,  Abraham  Lincoln  refused 
to  sign  that  emergency  revenue  measure  until  he  was  prom- 
ised its  repeal  as  soon  as  the  war  was  over.  For  fifty  years 
Lincoln's  dead  body  has  been  dishonored  by  the  presence 
of  licensed  saloons  in  his  own  city,  as  well  as  in  his  own 
State  and  Nation;  for  fifty  years  we  have  been  living  a  lie 
to  his  memory;  for  fifty  years  the  Congress  that  promised 

[214] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

him  the  repeal  of  the  liquor  excise  law  has  been  false,  not 
to  a  living  statesman,  but  to  a  dead  martyr.  It  was  a 
Northern  Congress  that  made  the  promise ;  but,  strange 
providence,  a  solid  Southern  delegation  in  Congress  will 
ere  long  keep  the  covenant  thus  made  at  the  North  just 
fifty-three  years  ago.  Mark  that.  Before  the  Civil  War 
the  sons  of  the  South  sat  in  the  White  House  and  led  in 
the  forensic  frays  of  American  Senates.  For  more  than 
half  a  century  other  hands,  in  the  main,  have  wielded  the 
scepter  of  national  power,  and  other  than  Southern  minds 
have  determined  the  policies  of  the  great  Republic.  In  this 
impending  struggle  for  liberty,  the  South  again  assumes 
the  leadership,  a  leadership  which,  because  unselfish,  prom- 
ises to  become  not  only  Nation-wide,  but  globe-encircling, 
for  the  countries  across  the  sea  are  drowning  their  world 
influence  in  their  own  blood,  and  American  ideals  must 
control  the  whole  earth.  We  must  see  to  it,  the  South  and 
West  must  see  to  it,  that  when  the  crown  of  world-power 
is  placed  upon  America's  brow,  ours  shall  be  a  saloonless 
land,  ours  a  sober  people,  ours  a  stainless  flag! 

Just  how  this  domestic  house  cleaning  is  to  be  accomplished, 
whether  by  regenerated  old  or  by  new-born  political  par- 
ties, by  the  sudden  growth  or  by  the  fusion  of  smaller 
parties,  or  by  omni-partisan  activity,  no  prophet  is  wise 
enough  to  know  and  few  are  rash  enough  to  predict.  The 
signs  of  the  times  seem  to  indicate  that  no  great  party  will 
in  1916  oppose  National  Prohibition,  and  that  by  1920  all 
of  them  will  loudly  endorse  it.  With  startling  rapidity  the 
liquor  traffic  is  losing  its  unsalaried  political  friends ;  and  it 
is  at  last  discovering  that  it  can  neither  get  nor  keep  a 
majority  of  America's  voters  on  its  pay  roll ! 

The  Republican  party  has  everything  to  gain  and  nothing 
to  lose  by  adopting  prohibition  in  its  next  platform.  It  is 
the  self-confessed  party  of  freedom,  and  a  second  great 
emancipation  is  overdue.    The  onlv  Democrat  in  captivity 

[215] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that  ever  gave  the  Repubhcan  party  good  advice,  I  am  fully 
prepared  for  any  disappointment  that  results  in  spurned 
counsel;  for  in  1920  my  Democratic  party  will  be  ready  to 
stand  for  the  referendum.  The  Solid  South  is  at  once 
Democratic  ground  and  prohibition  territory ;  and  the  rap- 
idly growing  prohibition  West  is  mainly  in  Woodrow  Wil- 
son's party.  Not  always  will  the  people  of  these  sections 
submit  to  a  political  leadership  that  ignores  the  main  for 
secondary  issues.  A  persistently  triumphant  Democracy 
must  be  a  Democracy  over  which  the  National  Liquor 
Dealers'  Association  has  no  shred  of  control.  Every  other 
party  may  as  well  take  similar  due  and  timely  notice,  and 
govern  itself  accordingly.  Unless  the  temper  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  misinterprets  itself,  a  President  favorable  to 
Nation-wide  prohibition  will  be  in  the  White  House  in 
1920  and  a  friendly  Congress  will  be  making  sober  laws 
in  the  Capitol  at  Washington  before  that  year  of  jubilee ! 

And  why  not?  Why  should  it  be  accounted  a  strange 
thing  that  a  rich,  powerful,  and  presumably  intelligent 
country  like  ours  should  prefer  to  serve  the  interests  of 
right  rather  than  wrong?  Should  anybody  be  surprised 
that  a  Nation  founded  on  the  hearthstone,  as  is  ours,  should 
banish  the  one  greatest  menace  of  the  home?  Let  this 
discussion  end  where  it  began — the  saloon  must  go  or  the 
home  will  go.  Illustrations  abound,  and  are  never  far  to 
seek.  No  audience  of  a  few  hundred,  or  as  many  thousand, 
people  would  fail  to  furnish  its  quota  of  wives  whom  the 
groggery  has  humbled;  of  children  whose  drunken  fathers 
have  left  a  heritage  of  weakness  or  poverty;  of  men  and 
women  whom  the  bite  of  the  serpent  has  hopelessly,  some- 
times vicariously,  always  unmistakably,  scarred. 

I  saw  her  fall  fainting,  into  the  arms  of  her  friends,  the 
most  beautiful  woman  I  have  seen  since  my  mother  died, 
for  know  ye,  women,  we  men  do  not  believe  that  the  most 
beautiful  woman  in  the  world  is  she  in  whose  cheeks  bloom 

[216] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  roses  of  youth  and  in  whose  form  are  the  suppleness 
and  grace  of  girlhood.  The  most  beautiful  woman  in  the 
world  to  any  right-minded  man  is  the  old-fashioned  mother, 
around  whose  glory-crowned  head  is  the  halo  of  true  ma- 
ternity. It  was  such  a  woman  who,  at  the  close  of  one  of 
our  meetings  in  California,  fell  fainting  into  the  arms  of  her 
friends.  Hastening  to  her,  she  said  to  me,  half  recovering, 
"Oh,  sir,  I  am  crippled,  as  you  see,  because  my  husband 
was  a  drunkard."  If  you  would  get  justification  for  the 
saloon's  annihilation,  find  it  in  the  agonized  face  and  bitter 
cry  of  that  blessed  old  vicarious  sufiferer — and  her  name  is 
Legion. 

Our  meeting  in  a  Kansas  town  had  closed  when  a  fine 
young  matron  ca'me  up  to  say,  quietly,  'T  too  am  a  South- 
erner, sir,  and  I  married  a  Tennesseean."  When  I  would  have 
made  playful  reply,  she  silenced  me  by  completing  piteously  the 
sentence,  "and  I  have  lived  with  a  drunkard  for  ten  years." 
Yes,  skeptic,  there  is  a  hell.  If  you  do  not  believe  it,  ask 
any  refined  wife  of  sensitive  soul,  who  has  lived  with  a 
drunkard  for  ten  years. 

It  was  in  Wyoming.  Leading  by  the  hand  a  chubby  child 
of  four,  the  little  one's  care-taking  kinswoman,  weeping,  cried 
out:  "Here  is  your  illustration.  This  baby's  father  is  in  an 
insane  asylum  because  of  drink." 

An  institution  which  breaks  the  hearts  of  noble  mothers, 
converts  a  wife's  home  into  a  hell,  makes  a  madman  of  a 
father,  and  closes  the  door  of  hope  to  babyhood,  has  no  rights 
that  any  self-respecting  American  ought  to  respect. 

In  a  far  Western  city  the  presiding  officer  whispered  to  me, 
"There  comes  the  worst  drunk  in  town,  his  wife  on  one  side, 
his  young  lady  daughter  on  the  other.  One  of  our  most 
influential  citizens  when  sober,  but  when  drunk  one  of  the 
worst  in  the  community."  Forgetting  my  speech  that  night,  I 
said: 

"In  my  Southland  the  man  who  would  not  defend  with  his 

[217] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

life  his  own  home,  protecting  his  wife  from  disgrace  and  his 
daughter  from  humiliation,  would  be  accounted  a  craven. 
The  villainous  invader  of  a  happy  family  circle  dies  on  the 
threshold  of  the  home  he  would  destroy,  and  no  jury  has  yet 
been  found  that  would  punish  the  man  who  thus  protects  his 
wife  and  daughter.  But  what  shall  be  done  with  the  miserable 
brute  who,  going  home  drunk,  destroys  his  own  home,  dis- 
graces his  own  wife,  and  humiliates  his  own  daughter?  He 
is  a  cur,  albeit  sometimes  he  cannot  help  himself.  His  beast- 
iality  and  his  cruelty  are  often  not  his  own ;  the  legalized 
liquor  traffic  transforms  the  devoted  husband  into  a  brute 
and  the  loving  father  into  a  fiend.  To  give  this  traffic  the 
right  to  make  devils  of  men,  the  American  people  become 
grafters  in  their  greed.  For  wretched  blood-money  in  the 
shape  of  revenue,  the  people  of  this  Republic  have  been  will- 
ing to  sell  the  holiness  of  homes,  the  innocence  of  girlhood, 
the  purity  of  womanhood,  the  honor  of  manhood!" 

The  saloon  is  the  only  institution  on  earth  that  can  habitu- 
ally break  up  homes  and  live.  It  drags  its  slimy  serpent  length 
across  the  threshold  of  a  once  happy  home  to  leave  it  in  shame 
and  squalor  and  grief.  Having  no  virtue  of  its  own,  it  is 
never  so  happy  as  when  it  is  destroying  the  virtue  of  others. 
With  the  same  ghoulish  glee  with  which  it  closets  domestic 
skeletons,  it  buries  a  hundred  thousand  victims  a  year,  and 
robs  of  their  very  shrouds  these  victims,  as  they  are  shoveled 
into  unmarked  graves.  To  perpetuate  its  own  worse  than 
worthless  life,  it  ravishes  the  virtue  of  the  press,  silences  blind 
justice,  and  prostitutes  public  opinion.  It  converts  courts  into 
courtesans,  congresses  into  serfs,  and  the  ballot  box,  the  holy 
ark  of  our  civic  covenant,  into  the  low  and  common  currency 
of  selfishness  and  hell. 

A  highwayman  who  hesitates  at  no  robbery,  a  thief  who 
steals  with  equal  glee  a  character,  a  franchise  or  a  fortune ; 
a  murderer  who  gloats  in  bathing  his  cruel  claws  in  the  blood 
of  the  innocents,  and  a  rape  fiend,  in  comparison  with  whom 

[218] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

every  black-hearted  villain  of  lust  is  a  philanthropist,  the 
liquor  traffic  in  America  richly  deserves  to  die  a  thousand 
horrible  deaths. 

And  die  thou  shalt,  oh,  King  Alcohol !  There  is  no  time 
now  for  thee  to  seek  peace  with  either  the  God  whom  thou 
hast  blasphemed  or  the  men  whom  thou  hast  irreparably 
wronged.  Thou  shalt  die  !  Thy  death  is  decreed !  Thy  doom 
is  eternal !  Thou  shalt  die  on  or  before  the  Fourth  of  July, 
1920,  the  public  welfare  requiring  it! 


[219] 


LANDRITH  LACONICS. 

God  is  omnipotent,  the  saloon  is  not  immortal. 

The  church  of  God  can  destroy  the  saloon  of  the  devil. 

The  church  of  God  could  do  what  it  would  if  it  would  do 
what  it  could. 

If  we  churchmen  had  saved  all  of  the  ammunition  we 
have  fired  at  each  other  over  water  and  predestination  and 
foreordination  and  apostasy  and  apostolic  succession  and 
church  government,  and  a  hundred  other  things  that  do  not 
mean  everything  in  this  world  and  nothing  in  the  world  to 
come — if  we  had  saved  all  the  bullets  we  have  shot  at  each 
other  and  had  turned  all  our  guns  on  the  enemy  we'd  have 
had  the  devil  on  the  run  a  long  time  ago. 

The  line  of  least  resistance  is  never  the  straight  and  nar- 
row way. 

Between  vice  and  virtue  there  can  be  no  conservative,  no 
neutral  position ;  between  God  and  the  devil  no  Hague  Tri- 
bvtnal. 

It  is  to  the  civic  indolence  of  the  upright,  and  not  to  the 
political  industry  of  the  vicious,  that  legalized  iniquity  owes 
its  continued  existence. 

A  preacher  is  merely  an  expert  in  morals,  a  specialist  in 
right  and  wrong. 

When  good  meets  bad  even  in  politics,  the  preacher  ought 
to  be  the  first  man  to  be  consulted  and  not  the  last  one  to 
speak  out. 

[221] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  preacher  who  has  not  discovered  that  the  saloon  is  a 
bad  thing  ought  to  exchange  his  clerical  robes  for  overalls,  and 
go  to  plowing  with  a  mule,  though  the  association  would  be 
no  credit  to  the  mule. 

Pity  the  puny  pulpiteer  who  perishes  in  platitudes ;  who 
aims  at  nothing  and  hits  it;  who  wastes  his  energies  on  the 
glories  of  the  New  Jerusalem  or  the  sins  of  old  Jerusalem, 
the  while  that  he  is  diplomatically  dumb  about  the  evils  of 
his  own  city. 

The  ancient  heresy  that  Christian  men,  particularly  min- 
isters of  the  gospel,  ought  to  keep  out  of  politics,  even  when 
moral  issues  are  involved,  has  well  served  Satan  to  frighten 
some  feeble  church  folk  nearly  to  death.  Exactly  the  con- 
trary is  true.  The  man  who  would  buy  a  ballot  or  sell  one 
has  no  business  in  politics,  and  the  honest  and  unpurchasable 
voter  has  no  business  out  of  politics,  particularly  when  the 
issue  is  one  of  right  and  wrong. 

He  is  not  quite  a  man  who  cannot  hold  the  reins  and  the 
whip  hand  over  his  own  life. 

The  man  who  stays  away  from  the  polls  because  he  does 
not  wish  to  lose  the  time  it  takes  to  go  and  vote  sells  his  ballot 
for  the  price  of  a  day's  labor. 

The  man  who  may  vote  and  won't  vote  ought  to  be  denied 
the  right  to  vote — or,  better  still,  ought  to  be  compelled  to 
mind  the  baby  while  his  wife  votes. 

The  man  who  buys  a  ballot  is  no  better  than  the  creature 
who  sells  one;  and  both  ought  to  be  summarily  disfranchised. 

Iniquity  is  essentially  weak.    Difficult  as  this  crusade  against 

[222] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  saloon  is,  the  difficulties  are  vastly  over-estimated.  Vice 
is  a  big  braggart,  but  it  is  a  coward,  quick  to  flee  before  or- 
ganized and  resolute  virtue. 

Thirty  per  cent,  of  the  eligible  voters  of  America  never 
vote.  Ask  the  venal  ward  boss  which  thirty  per  cent,  it  is. 
He  knows. 

Let  nobody  stand  above  my  rather  capacious  grave  when 
I  am  dead  and  lugubriously  whine,  "Everybody  was  his 
friend,"  for  that  would  not  be  true,  and  if  it  were  true  it 
would  not  be  complimentary.  Nobody  ever  did  anything  worth 
doing,  or  courageously  undid  anything  worth  undoing,  with- 
out incurring  the  enmity  of  the  vicious. 

A  man  is  often  better  known  by  the  enemies  he  makes  than 
by  the  company  he  keeps,  though  a  politician  is  best  known 
by  the  company  that  keeps  him. 

When  right  meets  wrong  you  cannot  pray  for  peace ;  you 
can  only  fight  for  peace  and  pray  for  victory. 


[223] 


CLINTON  N.  HOWARD 


CLINTON  N.  HOWARD  comes  of  a  long  line  of  heroic 
Quaker  ancestry,  who  were  preachers,  abolitionists,  re- 
formers and  statesmen  for  many  generations.  He  is 
descended  from  John  Howard,  the  prison  reformer,  and  Sir 
John  Howard,  Lord  Treasurer,  who  commanded  the  British 
army  at  Flodden  Field  when  the  Scots  were  routed  and 
James  IV  slain.  His  father  was  WilUam  Howard,  Knight 
of  Wiggenhall. 

The  first  ten  years  of  Mr.  Howard's  early  manhood  were 
spent  in  travel  and  laid  the  foundation  for  his  successful 
career  on  the  platform.  He  drank  deep  of  the  spring  that 
had  fired  the  hearts  of  his  fathers,  and  by  thirty  had  become 
widely  known  as  an  orator  and  reformer.  He  was  called 
from  city  to  city,  where  he  conducted  effective  campaigns  for 
civic  righteousness  and  became  known  as  "The  Little  Giant" 
of  the  reform  platform.  Locating  in  Rochester,  New  York, 
he  established  a  Sunday  afternoon  forum,  where  he  lectured 
for  ten  years  to  record-breaking  audiences,  enrolling  nearly 
three  thousand  men  in  the  Men's  Christian  Union,  which, 
under  his  leadership  for  twelve  years,  became  the  focal  point 
for  civic  and  moral  uplift. 

He  became  such  a  power  in  combating  public  wrongs,  and 
in  the  prosecution  of  lawbreakers,  that  the  evil  forces  of  the 
city  united  to  destroy  him,  raising  a  fund  of  ten  thousand 
dollars,  chiefly  subscribed  by  the  liquor  interests,  which  he 
exposed  and  defeated. 

He  has  delivered  over  five  hundred  lectures  in  his  home  city 
in  the  last  fifteen  years,  his  audiences  composed  chiefly  of 
men,  overflowing  the  largest  churches  and  auditoriums.  He 
is  officially  related  to  the  New  York  Civic  League,  the  Amer- 
ican Sabbath  Association,  the  National  Temperance  Society, 
the  American  Civic  Reform  Union,  the  International  Bureau, 
and  others. 

Mr.  Howard  joined  the  Flying  Squadron  at  its  initial  meet- 
ing in  Peoria  and  continued  with  it  as  the  leader  of  the  Second 

[227] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Division  throughout  its  itinerary  to  Cincinnati,  December  20th. 
Compelled  by  financial  necessities  to  earn  more  money  than  he 
could  hope  to  receive  as  a  member  of  the  Squadron,  he  retired 
at  that  time  to  take  part  in  the  great  temperance  campaigns 
then  being  inaugurated  in  western  Canada.  His  services  in 
these  campaigns  have  won  high  encomivims  from  the  press  and 
people.  He  has  the  militancy  of  a  crusader.  He  is  a  "Squad- 
ron" of  himself. 


[228] 


PROHIBITION  AND  PERSONAL  LIBERTY. 

PROHIBITION  was  the  world's  first  enactment,  written 
by  the  finger  of  God  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  keep  the 
way  of  life,  to  preserve  the  innocence  and  character  of 
man.  But  under  the  cover  of  the  first  night,  "in  the  cool  of 
the  day,"  there  crept  into  the  Garden  a  brewer  by  the  name 
of  Beelzebub,  who  told  the  first  man  that  God  was  a  liar ;  that 
he  could  sin  and  not  die;  that  the  prohibition  law  upon  the 
tree  of  life  was  an  infringement  upon  his  personal  liberty  and 
that  the  law  had  no  right  to  dictate  what  a  man  should  eat 
or  drink  or  wear.  The  devil  induced  Adam  to  go  into  rebel- 
lion against  the  law  of  God  in  the  name  of  personal  liberty, 
and  from  that  hour  dates  the  fall  of  man. 

We  are  hearing  something  of  that  same  argument  in  this 
campaign  against  the  serpent  drink,  and  not  only  on  the  part 
of  the  enemy.  There  are  many  good  men  who  look  upon 
prohibition  as  an  assault  upon  the  personal  liberty  of  the  citi- 
zen ;  but  it  seems  to  us  they  do  not  keep  clear  the  issues  in- 
volved in  this  fight.     They  are  not  personal  at  all. 

Personal  liberty  is  a  matter  of  personal  choice,  of  personal 
right  to  eat  or  to  drink.  No  prohibitory  law  ever  adopted  or 
proposed  attempts  to  interfere  with  that  right.  It  does  not 
seek  to  compel  a  man  to  abstain ;  it  does  not  say  that  he  ought 
not,  must  not,  or  dare  not  drink.  It  passes  only  upon  the 
social  right  of  trade,  traffic  and  sale.  Whether  a  man  drinks 
or  abstains  is  entirely  his  own  affair,  so  long  as  he  does  not 
poison  himself,  compel  society  to  cure  him,  support  him  when 
he  is  unable  to  take  care  of  himself,  lock  him  up  when  he  is 
dangerous  to  be  at  large,  bury  him  at  the  public  expense  when 
he  is  a  corpse,  or  interfere  with  the  personal  liberty  of  others 
when  he  is  exercising  his  own. 

It  is  a  recognized  principle  of  civilized  society  that  no  citizen 
has  a  right  to  commit  self-destruction  or  to  poison  himself  in 
such  a  way  and  to  such  an  extent  as  to  become  a  public  nuis- 

[229] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ance  or  a  public  charge.  With  that  exception,  whether 
and  whatever  a  man  drinks  is  his  own  affair,  to  be  regulated  by 
his  own  appetite,  palate  and  conscience.  I  may  believe  that  it 
is  best  for  him  to  abstain,  but  I  have  no  right  to  force  my 
belief  upon  him,  or  compel  him  by  law  to  regulate  his  conduct 
by  mine,  or  the  way  I  think  that  he  ought  to  regulate  his. 

This  rule  applies  to  any  commodity,  whether  food  or  drink, 
irrespective  of  the  liquor  question.  It  is  upon  this  principle 
that  the  claim  of  personal  liberty  is  made.  It  seems  so  rea- 
sonable and  plausible  that  it  deceives  even  some  of  the  elect — 
men  whose  personal  habits,  and  whose  sympathies  naturally 
place  them  upon  our  side  of  the  contest.  Where  is  the  diffi- 
culty? 

It  lies  in  the  fact  that  these  men  do  not  properly  discriminate 
between  a  personal  right  and  a  social  act.  Personal  liberty  re- 
lates to  private  conduct.  If  a  man  signs  the  temperance  pledge 
he  surrenders  his  personal  liberty  or  personal  privilege  to 
drink ;  when  he  votes  dry — to  prohibit  the  liquor  traffic — it 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  question  of  personal 
liberty. 

To  abstain  is  a  personal  act ;  to  market,  traffic  and  trade  is 
a  social  right,  limited  by  the  social  effect  of  the  thing  sold 
and  the  place  where  it  is  kept  for  sale. 

This  distinction  between  total  abstinence,  which  relates  to 
personal  liberty  or  personal  conduct,  and  prohibition,  which 
relates  to  social  conduct  and  the  State,  is  perfectly  clear. 

They  do  not  at  all  mean  one  and  the  same  thing. 

The  one  has  to  do  with  the  drink  habit;  the  other  has  to 
do  with  the  drink  traffic. 

The  one  is  the  act  of  the  individual ;  the  other  is  the  act 
of  the  State. 

Total  abstinence  is  the  voluntary  act  of  one  man ;  it  recog- 
nizes the  right  of  choice  of  personal  liberty.  Prohibition  is 
the  act  of  the  community,  the  State,  the  majority,  which  is 
the  State,  and  is  a  matter  of  public  policy,  to  conserve  social 

[230] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  civic  liberty  by  denying  to  an  immoral  and  dangerous 
traffic  the  right  of  public  sale. 

Do  you  mean  to  say  that  I  have  a  personal  right  to  drink, 
but  that  I  do  not  have  a  personal  right  to  sell  ?  Do  you  mean 
to  say  that  you  have  a  personal  right  to  drink,  but  that  I  do 
not  have  a  personal  right  to  sell  you  what  you  have  a  personal 
right  to  drink  ?     Exactly ! 

You  have  a  personal  right  to  eat  putrid  meat ;  I  have  no 
right  to  sell  it.  If  your  hog  dies  a  natural  death,  or  with  the 
cholera,  you  have  a  personal  right  to  grind  it  up  into  sausage 
and  eat  it,  but  you  have  no  right  to  offer  it  for  public  sale. 
A  man  has  a  personal  right  to  corn  his  dead  mule  and  serve 
it  on  his  own  table.  You  have  as  good  a  right  to  eat  your 
cat  as  I  have  my  chicken,  or  your  dog  as  I  have  my  pig.  The 
Chinese  in  New  York  have  a  dog  feast  at  their  New  Year's 
celebration  and  the  police  have  never  interfered  with  their 
personal  right.  But  if  you  opened  a  meat  market  and  skinned 
dogs  and  cats  or  exposed  horse  sausage  for  public  sale,  the 
meat  inspector  would  confiscate  the  entire  supply,  close  up  the 
place  as  a  public  nuisance  and  arrest  you  for  selling  what 
you  had  a  personal  right  to  eat. 

We  have  a  law  against  the  sale  of  impure  literature.  We 
do  not  say  that  a  man  shall  not  read  it,  even  though  that  may 
harm  him,  because  it  is  his  and  it  is  his  personal  right  to 
damage  his  own  character  and  corrupt  his  own  mind ;  but  if  he 
opens  a  shop  for  the  dissemination  and  sale  of  such  literature 
to  corrupt  the  youth  of  the  community,  society  steps  in  and 
interferes — not  with  his  personal  liberty  to  read  what  he  likes, 
but  with  his  social  right  to  sell  that  which  corrupts  public 
morals.  Under  this  law,  tons  of  impure  literature,  licentious 
post  cards  and  immoral  books  are  seized  and  destroyed  every 
year,  without  compensation  to  their  owners ;  indeed,  they  are 
prosecuted  and  fined  or  jailed  for  the  offense  against  public 
morality  and  decency.     That  is  prohibition. 

You  have  a  personal  right  to  drink  watered  milk,  sour  milk, 

[231] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

skimmed  milk,  goat's  milk  or  pig's  milk,  but  I  have  no  right 
to  sell  it.  I  recall  that  in  late  life  my  father  was  troubled 
with  indigestion.  He  was  ordered  by  his  physician  to  a 
milk  diet  for  breakfast,  and  he  was  not  able  to  retain  it  in 
its  natural  state.  He  was  obliged  to  dilute  it  with  water.  He 
would  fill  his  glass  half  full  of  milk  and  fill  it  up  with  water. 
It  agreed  with  his  stomach  and  he  grew  to  like  it  that  way. 
That  was  his  personal  liberty  at  his  own  table.  No  law  would 
invade  his  home  and  dictate  to  him  how  he  should  drink  his 
milk.  But  let  us  suppose  that  he  was  your  milkman  and  he 
decided  that  what  was  good  for  his  stomach  was  good  for 
his  customers  and  on  the  way  to  your  house  he  stopped  at 
the  pump  and  filled  up  the  can.  The  milk  inspector  would 
seize  the  whole  cargo,  dump  it  into  the  sewer  and  railroad 
him  to  jail. 

I  have  no  personal  liberty  to  sell  what  you  have  a  personal 
liberty  to  drink.  Men  are  fond  of  saying,  "The  law  has  no 
right  to  dictate  what  a  man  shall  eat  or  drink  or  wear."  But 
the  law  does.  It  does  forbid  your  dressing  in  your  wife's 
clothes  or  her  dressing  in  yours ;  the  law  does  forbid  a  man 
shooting  game  in  his  own  woods  or  fishing  for  trout  in  his 
own  private  stream  or  pond  on  his  own  farm.  The  law  for- 
bids a  man  from  smoking  in  his  own  factory.  President 
Woodrow  Wilson  exercised  his  personal  liberty  and  violated 
the  traffic  ordinance  of  Washington  by  crossing  the  street  in 
the  direction  of  the  White  House  diagonally.  A  policeman 
called  him  back  and  the  President  of  the  United  States  crossed 
the  street  at  right  angles,  according  to  tlie  law  of  "safety  first" 
made  by  organized  society. 

The  country  man's  right  is  the  city  man's  crime.  Why? 
Because  all  personal  liberty  is  surrendered  to  the  public  good 
in  a  state  of  civilized  society. 

You  cannot  run  your  automobile  in  excess  of  the  speed 
limit ;  you  cannot  build  your  house  out  of  the  material  or  on 
the  spot  on  your  lot  you  may  choose  to  build  it ;  you  dare  not 

[232] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

overcrowd  your  block;  you  cannot  put  your  own  children  to 
work  even  though  you  might  need  their  help ;  the  State  says 
they  must  go  to  school ;  you  dare  not  overwork  those  whom 
you  employ,  even  though  they  may  wish  to  work ;  you  cannot 
spend  your  money  the  way  you  like — you  may  wish  to  spend 
it  on  yourself,  the  law  will  compel  you  to  spend  it  on  your 
wife  and  family;  you  cannot  enjoy  the  kind  of  religion  you 
like  if  your  faith  leads  you  to  violate  the  moral  code  of  the 
State.  A  Mormon  missionary  came  to  New  York  and  was 
arrested  by  an  Irish  policeman.  "What's  the  charge?"  said 
the  judge.  "Bigotry,"  said  Pat;  "he  has  two  wives."  Your 
life  is  your  own,  but  you  have  no  right  to  take  it,  and  the  law- 
will  punish  you  if  you  make  an  unsuccessful  attempt.  Where 
is  your  personal  liberty?   Gone — in  a  state  of  civilized  society! 

In  other  words,  personal  liberty  must  conform  to  morality. 
The  public  peace,  the  public  safety  and  the  public  health  pre- 
vail over  individual  rights  in  any  civilized  community.  You 
cannot  have  the  one  without  surrendering  the  other. 

Unrestrained  personal  liberty  would  mean  social  anarchy. 
There  is  no  such  thing  in  a  state  of  civilized  society. 

All  law,  whether  prohibitory,  regulative  or  license,  is  an 
abridgment  of  individual  liberty  and  is  founded  upon  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  general  welfare  is  the  supreme  law  of  society. 

This  is  the  basis  of  prohibition  law. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  detrimental  to  the  general  welfare.  It 
is  the  enemy  of  public  morality,  safety,  peace,  etc.  It  has 
destroyed  the  units  of  government,  bound  heavy  burdens  upon 
the  people,  corrupted  society,  debauched  politics,  violated  every 
law,  destroyed  the  public  peace  and  denied  the  right  of  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  to  millions  of  men,  women 
and  children ;  and  in  the  name  of  the  common  good  and  the 
general  welfare  the  people  impose  upon  themselves  by  a  ma- 
jority vote  the  prohibition  of  its  manufacture  and  sale. 

How  long  would  we  delay  to  apply  this  principle  if  it  were 
the  women  of  the  community  that  patronized  the  saloon  instead 

[233] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

of  the  men?  If  the  women  exercised  their  personal  liberty 
to  drink  rum  at  the  bar  of  the  public  saloon  to  the  same  extent 
as  the  men  with  the  same  results  to  society,  to  the  home  and 
the  children;  if  they  spent  their  evenings  down  town  "with 
the  girls"  (in  the  company  of  immoral  men,  as  most  men  are 
who  spend  their  night  down  town  "with  the  boys")  ;  if  they 
lined  up  in  front  of  the  bar,  squandered  the  wages  of  the 
week,  to  which  they  are  as  much  entitled  as  the  men,  neglect- 
ing their  homes,  learning  to  smoke  and  to  chew  and  to  swear 
and  to  spit  and  soak  themselves  in  beer,  the  men  of  the  nation 
would  lose  no  time  in  making  laws  to  restrain  the  personal 
liberty  of  the  women,  not  by  making  it  a  crime  to  drink,  but 
by  imposing  a  prohibition  upon  its  public  sale.  In  defense 
of  the  home  and  the  women  and  the  children,  we  demand  the 
same  law  for  the  men.  In  the  name  of  personal  liberty  the 
liquor  traffic  ought  to  die ! 


[234] 


AN  ORGANIZED  OUTLAW. 

THE  business  of  the  shoe  manufacturer  is  to  manufac- 
ture shoes ;  the  business  of  the  clothing  manufacturer  is 
to  manufacture  clothing;  the  business  of  the  cotton  mill 
is  to  manufacture  cloth ;  the  business  of  the  steel  mill  is  to 
manufacture  steel;  the  business  of  the  tin  mill  is  to  manufac- 
ture tin,  and  the  business  of  the  gin  mill  is  to  manufacture 
sin.  This  would  be  an  appropriate  sign  over  every  brewery, 
distillery  and  saloon  door :  "Purveyor  to  his  majesty  the  devil ; 
manufacturer  of  sin." 

What  is  sin?  "Sin  is  a  transgression  of  the  law."  That's 
the  saloon.  The  saloon  is  a  transgression  of  the  law ;  the 
saloon  is  an  institution  for  the  violation  of  the  law ;  the  saloon 
is  an  organized  outlaw. 

They  sell  for  rum  whatever  they  please,  whenever  they 
please,  to  whomever  they  please,  whether  sober  or  drunk,  chil- 
dren or  women,  minors  or  men. 

They  have  no  use  for  a  clock,  they  seldom  if  ever  turn  a 
lock,  and  they  lose  the  key  as  a  part  of  the  opening  ceremony. 

They  keep  open  house  for  all  comers,  at  all  hours,  for  all 
purposes,  at  your  own  charge,  and  ask  no  questions. 

They  take  a  lively  interest  in  politics,  hold  the  big  stick 
over  the  head  of  the  police  department,  fill  a  generous  part 
of  the  pviblic  offices,  and  regard  themselves  as  a  privileged 
class  of  criminals  above  the  laws  of  the  State  and  the  laws 
of  God. 

This  is  the  saloon. 

What  proportion  of  the  total  number  of  saloons  does  that 
description  include? 

In  round  numbers,  one  hundred  per  cent.  Where?  Every- 
where, in  this  city  and  on  the  outside.  Is  there,  then,  no  such 
thing  as  a  law-abiding  saloon?  If  there  is,  it  is  like  the  white 
rhinoceros  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  was  looking  for  in  the 
jungles  of  Africa;  it  exists  in  the  minds  of  superstitious  na- 

[235] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

tives  on  the  inside  and  a  few  nature  fakers  on  the  outside, 
but  no  one  has  ever  seen  it. 

^^'hat  shall  we  do  with  the  white  rhinoceros  when  we  find 
it?  The  same  thing  that  we  ought  to  do  with  the  black,  law- 
defying  saloon  when  we  find  that ;  kill  it,  skin  it,  tan  it,  and 
send  its  stuffed  hide  to  the  National  Museum  at  Washington 
as  a  specimen  of  the  extinct,  untamable  wild  beasts  once 
licensed  to  ravage  the  childhood,  the  motherhood,  the  man- 
hood and  the  homes  of  our  Christian  civilization. 

An  American  saloon  that  does  not  violate  the  law  v/ould  be 
a  greater  curiosity  than  Theodore  Roosevelt  brought  home 
from  Africa.  You  can  count  the  saloons  of  this  country  that 
do  not  violate  the  law  on  the  thumbs  of  my  right  hand  and 
you  will  have  one  thumb  to  spare. 

The  lawless,  law-made,  law-making  and  law-breaking,  or- 
ganized, legalized,  demonized,  licensed  American  sin-saloon  is 
an  institution  of  organized  anarchy,  federated  in  city,  state 
and  nation,  bound  by  ties  which  only  a  stronger  power  can 
break,  intrenched  behind  the  laws  of  the  State  and  Nation, 
with  its  head  sheltered  in  the  State  capitols  and  in  the  National 
Capitol  at  Washington.  Strike  one  and  you  strike  all — pocket 
peddler,  blind  tiger,  blind  pig,  speakeasy,  saloon,  hotel  bar, 
high-toned  cafe,  swell  club  buffet,  bishop's  subway,  brewer, 
Beelzebub,  distiller  and  devil.  You  cannot  treat  it  as  an  indi- 
vidual occupation.  It  is  mortgaged  to  the  brewer,  the  poli- 
tician, the  boss,  the  police,  the  gambler,  the  harlot,  the  crim- 
inal and  the  devil. 

The  law  says  it  must  not  sell  on  Sunday,  but  it  does ;  the 
law  says  it  must  not  sell  on  election  day,  but  it  does ;  the  law 
says  it  must  not  sell  during  prohibited  hours,  but  it  does ;  the 
law  says  it  must  not  sell  to  minors,  but  it  does ;  the  law  says 
it  shall  not  permit  or  promote  social  impurity,  but  it  does ; 
the  law  says  it  shall  not  sell  to  a  man  that's  drunk,  but  the 
only  escape  that  the  drunkard  has  from  the  saloon  is  the  grave, 

[236] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  the  liquor  traffic  would  rob  that  if  it  thought  its  customer 
had  another  dime  concealed  in  his  shrcud. 

We  make  a  tariff  law  and  the  importer  obeys  it ;  a  currency 
law  and  the  banker  obeys  it;  a  pure  food  law  and  the  grocer 
obeys  it ;  a  game  law  and  the  sportsman  obeys  it ;  a  health  law 
and  the  expectorator  obeys  it.  But  we  make  an  excise  law, 
a  law  to  regulate  and  restrain  the  saloon,  and  this  red-handed 
devil  hangs  out  its  red  rag  of  anarchy,  spreads  its  fingers  in 
the  faces  of  the  authorities,  hires  a  spotter  to  sneak  in  the 
initiated  and  a  bouncer  to  kick  out  the  graduated,  hangs  up 
an  electric  buzzer  to  make  a  fool  of  the  policeman  and  says 
to  the  outraged  public : 

"Shut  my  front  door  and  I  will  open  a  side  door;  shut  my 
side  door  and  I  will  open  a  back  door ;  shut  my  back  door  and 
I  will  open  a  cellar  door;  seal  me  up  like  a  tomb  and  I  will 
open  an  annex  with  a  subway  to  the  bar ;  clean  up  your  ward 
and  I'll  open  a  pipeline  from  the  brewery  to  my  customers' 
cellars;  cast  me  out  of  your  county  and  I'll  make  a  blind  tiger 
out  of  your  express  office  and  put  on  a  John  Doe  jug  train; 
make  the  State  dry  and  I'll  launch  a  floating  poison  palace 
upon  the  waters  that  wash  your  borders,  and  sneak  over  the 
line  under  the  cover  of  the  night  with  a  coffin  for  a  cask. 
Come  on  with  your  officers  sworn  to  enforce  the  law.  I'll 
strinf^  them  up  to  the  lamp  post,  stick  them  in  the  back  with 
a  knife,  resort  to  torch,  dynamite,  assassination,  set  Judge 
Lynch  on  the  bench.  I'm  the  saloon!  I  slew  Gambrell;  I 
shot  Carmack ;  I  dyed  the  streets  of  Sioux  City  with  the  blood 
of  Haddock ! 

"I'm  the  saloon  !  You  can't  tame  me ;  you  can't  muzzle  me ; 
you  can't  civilize  me ! 

"I  will  desecrate  the  Sabbath ;  I  will  debauch  your  citizens ; 
I  will  outrage  your  sons  and  daughters ;  I  will  wreck  your 
homes ;  I  will  break  the  hearts  of  your  wives  and  mothers ; 
I  will  override  your  laws !" 

[237] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

In  the  name  of  God  and  the  sovereign  American  people, 
who  are  you? 

And  the  answer  is,  "I  am  the  saloon !" 

Yes,  yes,  you  old  demon,  you  always  have  done  that,  all 
that ;  but,  thank  God,  you  are  reaching  the  end  of  your  rope ! 
The  worm  is  turning;  the  people  who  have  been  crawling  and 
crawfishing  at  the  crack  of  this  slave-driver's  whip  are  rous- 
ing themselves  to  throw  off  his  yoke,  and  the  hand  that  wrote 
the  sentence  of  death  upon  the  walls  at  that  drunken  feast  of 
King  Belshazzar  is  writing  the  doom  of  this  lawless,  licensed 
saloon  on  the  walls  of  this  Christian  Nation. 

For  a  generation  the  cry  of  broken-hearted  womanhood, 
beggared  childhood,  and  broken  and  wrecked  manhood  has 
been  going  up  to  God  for  a  day  of  vengeance  against  this 
curse. 

At  last  the  answer  comes,  like  the  incarnated  voice  of 
Jehovah  that  flamed  from  the  midst  of  the  burning  bush  on 
the  desert,  "I  have  seen  the  affliction  of  my  people,  I  have 
heard  their  cry  and  I  am  come  down  to  save  them."  And  forth- 
with the  storm  breaks  upon  the  saloon  as  the  hurricane  breaks 
across  the  deck  of  the  pirate  ship.  The  chariot  of  the  Lord 
and  the  horseman  thereof  are  riding  down  this  red  dragon ; 
Jesus  Christ,  our  Conquering  Master,  is  walking  across  the 
American  continent  and  every  place  His  holy  foot  is  lifted 
leaves  a  dry  spot.  It  has  but  one  meaning — the  saloon  must 
go !    The  liquor  traffic  must  and  shall  he  destroyed! 

"Unite,  ye  foes  of  liquordom ; 
Bid  Gog  and  Magog  fly; 
In  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  as  King 
The  liquor  trafific  must  die." 


[238] 


THE  OUTLAW  INDICTED. 

THE  liquor  traffic  is  the  enemy  of  "whatsoever  things 
are  true,  honest,  just,  pure,  lovely  and  whatsoever  things 
are  of  good  report"  on  this  earth. 

It  is  the  enemy  of  the  home,  the  mother  that  makes  it,  the 
father  that  defends  it,  the  childhood  that  adorns  and  sancti- 
fies it. 

It  is  the  enemy  of  the  church,  the  Christ  that  founded  it 
and  the  Sabbath  school  that  sustains  it. 

It  is  the  enemy  of  the  school,  the  factory,  the  store,  the 
farm  and  the  barn ;  the  enemy  of  God  and  of  Heaven.  It  is 
the  fast  limited  Black  Demon  express  that  leads  to  everything 
in  the  opposite  direction,  with  the  devil's  hand  on  the  throttle 
and  hell  the  destination  of  the  train. 

There  is  not  a  single  department  of  our  American  life,  do- 
mestic, social,  economic,  civic  or  religious  that  has  not  felt  its 
blight. 

Its  wrongs  upon  humanity  have  been  written  with  human 
blood.  It  is  the  blackest  crime  in  history  since  Judas  Iscariot 
sold  the  Son  of  God. 

In  the  high  court  of  Heaven  I  indict  it  as  the  curse  of  the 
cradle,  the  nightmare  of  the  family  altar,  the  vulture  of  human 
society  and  the  populator  of  the  cemetery. 

I  indict  it  as  the  wild  beast  of  our  boasted  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, untamed  and  untamable,  unwashed  and  unwashable,  un- 
civilized and  uncivilizable,  unmuzzled  wherever  licensed  on  the 
highways  of  the  city,  state  and  nation,  scattering  physical, 
mental  and  moral  hydrophobia  among  the  people,  leaping  upon 
our  little  children,  driving  its  poisonous  fangs  into  the  heart 
and  brain  and  blood  of  our  young  men,  stealing  the  roses  from 
the  cheeks  and  virtue  from  the  hearts  of  our  daughters,  dis- 
appointing the  hopes  of  our  fathers,  breaking  the  hearts  of  our 
mothers,  destroying  our  homes,  corrupting  our  politics,  mak- 
ing cowards  of  our  policemen,  perjurers  of  our  public  officers 

[239] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  smiting  with  the  leprosy  of  perdition  the  gate  of  every 
city  and  the  foundation  of  every  state. 

It  is  a  work  of  the  devil ;  with  the  blood  of  our  sons  dripping 
from  every  counter,  the  wails  of  beggared  children  issuing 
from  every  crevice,  the  bones  of  dead  men  rattling  in  every 
spigot,  the  tears  of  the  broken-hearted  sweating  from  every 
ice-chilled  goblet;  with  the  barroom  in  the  front,  the  gambling 
room  in  the  rear,  and  the  scarlet  woman  overhead ;  the  trinity 
of  perdition  on  the  highway  of  a  Christian  civilization,  with 
a  trail  of  crime,  divorce,  insanity,  poverty,  social  impurity, 
political  debauchery,  bossism  and  grafting  following  in  its 
wake,  that  stands  before  the  cradle  of  our  American  mother- 
hood, like  the  great  Red  Dragon  of  the  Revelation  with  seven 
heads  and  ten  horns,  waiting  to  devour  her  baby  as  soon  as 
it  is  born,  laughs  at  her  love,  scoffs  at  her  sorrow,  mocks  at 
her  prayers  and  blows  bubbles  with  her  blood. 

In  the  high  court  of  Heaven  I  indict  it  as  a  modern  Herod, 
that  foredooms  children  to  damnation  at  the  hour  of  their 
drunken  conception,  overlays  them  by  drunken  motherhood 
in  the  night,  starves  them  in  infancy,  kidnaps  them  from  play- 
ground and  public  school  and  grinds  them  up  in  mill,  mine 
and  factory  to  supplement  the  meager  wages  that  father  brings 
home  after  the  saloon  has  waylaid  the  worker  and  robbed  his 
pay  envelope  on  Saturday  night ;  marries  them  to  the  house 
of  shame  in  youth,  burns  them  up  with  unquenchable  fire  in 
manhood,  and  lays  them  like  sheep  in  the  grave. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  a  work  of  the  devil.  It  paralyzes  the 
love  and  wastes  the  wages  of  our  fathers,  fires  the  evil  pas- 
sions of  our  sons,  beguiles  into  paths  of  sin  our  virtuous 
daughters,  steals  the  milk  from  the  bottle  of  the  baby,  strips 
the  home  of  comforts  as  a  cyclone  rapes  the  forest,  and  the 
calendar  of  perdition  dates  from  the  hour  of  its  birth. 

It  has  opened  dens  of  anarchy  on  the  streets  of  our  great 
cities;  schooled  our  young  manhood  to  a  life  of  licentious  in- 
dulgence, personal  impurity  and  profanity ;  sickened  the  pub- 

[240] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

lie  conscience  with  its  daily  horrib'e  detail  of  debauchery, 
deviltry  and  crime;  blocked  the  wheels  of  every  righteous 
reform,  paralyzed  industry,  crucified  labor,  defeated  the 
church,  outraged  the  heathen ;  it  blasphemes  the  Almighty  and 
would  crucify  afresh  the  Son  of  God  every  hour  of  its  legal- 
ized life. 

It  is  burning  the  heart  out  of  our  great  municipalities,  it 
has  filled  the  public  service  with  grafters,  organized  the  black 
horse  cavalry  in  our  State  legislatures  and  the  gray  wolves 
in  our  city  councils,  continentalized  our  Christian  Sabbath, 
defeated  our  benevolent  intentions  in  our  insular  possessions, 
defied  the  laws  under  the  shadow  of  the  National  Capitol 
and  has  debauched  and  made  purchasable  enough  votes  to 
decide  a  national  election. 

It  is  a  crime  against  the  State,  the  State  ought  to  suppress 
it ;  it  is  a  crime  against  Humanity,  Humanity  ought  to  rise  up 
against  It ;  It  is  a  crime  against  the  Church,  the  Church  ought 
to  smite  It. 

It  does  not  spare  the  cradle,  it  would  murder  if  It  could 
the  Christ  child;  its  claims  to  benevolence  and  piety,  its  appeal 
to  liberty.  Its  promise  to  obey  the  law  is  like  the  lie  on  the  lip 
of  Herod,  when,  with  murder  In  his  heart,  he  said  to  the  wise 
men,  "Search  for  the  young  child,  and  when  you  have  found 
him  bring  me  word  again  that  I  may  come  and  worship  him 
also,"  the  while  he  was  whetting  his  knife  for  the  slaughter 
of  the  Innocents  of  Bethlehem.  If  Herod  knew  of  the  slaugh- 
ter of  the  innocents  by  the  American  saloon,  he  would  turn 
over  In  his  grave. 

If  Satan  should  make  into  one  every  serpent  In  the  sea, 
every  snake  in  the  grass,  every  mad  dog  in  the  street  and 
every  wild  beast  in  the  forest,  he  could  not  incarnate  the  Amer- 
ican saloon  unless  he  put  himself  under  the  same  skin;  for  the 
saloon  is  as  mad,  sleepless,  relentless,  pitiless  and  blood-thirsty 
as  them  all. 

Like  a  flame  of  fire.  It  shows  no  pity;  it  hears  no  cry  for 

[2411 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

mercy;  it  lifts  its  tongue  defiantly  to  the  heavens;  it  would 
pawn  the  shirt  from  the  back  of  a  shivering  man,  steal  the 
milk  from  the  breast  of  a  weeping  woman,  take  the  last  crust 
of  bread  from  the  hand  of  a  starving  child,  rob  the  cellar  of 
its  last  bucket  of  coal,  empty  the  medicine  bottle  of  the  sick, 
deny  aid  to  the  dying  and  strip  the  coffin  from  the  dead. 

It  wraps  a  mantle  of  crape  around  the  circle  of  the  globe, 
and  while  the  world  staggers  under  the  load  of  its  infamy 
and  weeps  in  agony  over  the  graves  of  its  one  hundred  thou- 
sand annual  victims,  the  saloon  pours  oil  on  the  flames,  greases 
the  pathway  to  perdition,  enlarges  the  boundaries  of  hell  to 
receive  its  victims  and  drinks  a  toast  to  the  damnation  of  hu- 
manity from  human  skulls  in  a  nectar  brewed  in  tears  and 
blood. 

This  is  the  indictment,  the  liquor  traffic  is  the  criminal, 
the  people  are  the  victims,  God  is  the  judge;  science,  reason, 
religion,  motherhood  and  posterity  are  the  jury,  and  the  verdict 
is  guilty  in  every  unprejudiced,  unpurchasable  and  just  court. 
And  the  sentence  of  the  national  conscience  is  that  this  mother 
of  all  abominations  and  father  of  all  lies  and  sum  of  all  vil- 
lainies, this  covenant  with  death  and  agreement  with  hell,  shall 
be  carried  bound  to  the  place  of  execution  at  the  Holy  of 
Holies  of  the  temple  of  the  Nation  at  sunrise  of  the  next  gen- 
eral election,  and  there  stoned  with  Christian  ballots  until  it 
dies ;  the  execution  to  take  place  in  the  capital  city  of  Wash- 
ington, with  the  President  of  the  United  States  acting  as  high 
chief  sheriff  of  the  day! 


[242] 


ELLA  A.  BOOLE 


ELLA  A.  BOOLE  was  born  in  Van  Wert,  Ohio.  After 
attending  the  graded  schools  she  entered  the  University 
of  Wooster,  graduating  in  1878.  Her  record  in  col- 
lege was  high,  she  being  among  the  first  in  her  class,  receiving 
the  first  prize  in  the  Junior  Oratorical  Contest. 

After  teaching  in  the  high  school  of  her  native  town  for 
five  years,  she  was  married  to  the  Rev.  William  H.  Boole,  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  She  dates  her  interest  in 
temperance  work  to  the  time  of  the  Crusade,  when,  as  a  school 
girl  in  Ohio,  she  came  in  touch  with  that  mighty  movement. 
Her  platform  work  began  in  1883,  and  she  has  given  the  best 
years  of  her  life  to  the  prosecution  of  religious  and  philan- 
thropic work. 

She  has  been  an  officer  in  the  New  York  State  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance  Union  since  1885,  having  served  as 
Corresponding  Secretary,  First  Vice-President  and  Secretary 
of  Young  Women's  Branch.  She  is  now  the  State  President 
of  the  W.  C.  T.  U.  of  New  York,  which  position  she  has  held 
since  1898. 

As  a  member  of  the  New  York  City  Woman's  Press  Club, 
and  Chairman  of  the  Woman's  Anti-Vice  Committee  of  New 
York  city,  she  is  well  known  among  literary  and  philanthropic 
women,  while  her  platform  experience  extends  over  half  the 
nation. 

Mrs.  Boole  is  intellectual,  her  mind  is  clear  and  logical, 
yet  with  all  her  mental  equipment  she  is  a  real  gentlewoman, 
of  tender  and  loving  heart.  Mrs.  Boole  has  won  the  degree 
of  Ph.D.,  but  in  her  modesty  never  uses  it,  and,  like  Frances 
Willard,  has  refused  positions  of  large  salary,  where  she 
might  give  herself  to  comparative  ease  and  study,  but  instead 
is  giving  all  her  powers  to  this  her  country's  greatest  cause. 

Owing  to  impaired  health  and  duties  in  connection  with  her 
position  as  President  of  the  New  York  State  W.  C.  T.  U., 
which  she  could  not  defer,  she  was  able  to  give  but  a  few 
weeks  to  the  Squadron  campaign,  but  her  name  and  worth 
were  constant  assets. 

[245] 


PATRIOTIC  PROBLEMS. 

THERE  are  three  important  questions  that  must  be  con- 
sidered by  every  community — Questions  of  Public 
Health,  Questions  of  Public  Morals  and  Questions  of 
Evangelism. 

Probably  at  no  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  have  we 
paid  so  much  attention  to  the  questions  of  public  health  as 
we  are  doing  today.  We  clothe  our  boards  of  health  with 
almost  arbitrary  authority.  They  may  quarantine  a  home; 
they  may  quarantine  a  village  or  city ;  they  may  close  a  busi- 
ness, or  they  may  order  a  new  water  supply;  they  may  re- 
quire the  construction  of  a  new  sewerage  system ;  they  may 
even  forbid  trains  to  stop,  or  people  to  enter  a  city,  or  to 
leave  it.  We  believe  in  this  because  no  matter  how  much  we 
may  want  to  do  things,  unless  we  have  health  we  may  be 
prevented  from  doing  them.  We  invest  large  sums  of  money 
in  the  education  of  boys  and  girls. and  we  want  them  to  be 
able  to  return  to  the  State  value  received  in  service  when  they 
reach  maturity. 

At  a  meeting  in  New  York  City  of  the  representatives  of 
forty-three  life  insurance  companies,  Mr.  Hunter,  the  actuary 
of  one  of  these  companies,  who  had  been  appointed  to  look 
into  the  matter  of  the  effect  of  alcohol  on  longevity,  stated  in 
his  report  that  a  saloon  keeper  was  a  bad  risk,  that  a  hotel 
keeper  was  just  as  bad  a  risk  as  a  saloon  keeper  if  he  attended 
his  own  bar  and  patronized  it;  that  the  life  of  the  moderate 
drinker  was  from  nine  to  thirteen  years  shorter  than  that  of 
the  total  abstainer,  while  few  insurance  companies  would 
risk  issuing  a  policy  on  a  man  who  was  an  habitual  drunkard. 
He  further  went  on  to  say  that  if  Russia  were  to  keep  up 
prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  for  ten  years,  it  would  mean 
a  saving  of  five  hundred  thousand  lives,  and  they  would  make 
up  for  the  losses  of  the  awful  war  in  which  she  is  now  engaged. 

Now  this  is  not  the  statement  of  a   fanatical  temperance 

[247] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

reformer;  it  is  the  statement  of  a  hard-headed  business  man 
who  is  financially  interested  in  having  the  policyholders  of 
his  company  live  as  long  as  possible.  Every  policyholder  w^ho 
dies  before  his  time  is  a  financial  loss  to  the  company  and  his 
death  lessens  the  dividends  that  would  be  returned  to  other 
policyholders. 

The  report  later  announced  that  women  in  these  days  were 
living  longer  than  men.  It  was  stated  that  it  was  because 
women  lived  more  sheltered  lives,  because  they  did  not  use 
so  much  liquor  or  tobacco  and  because  their  lives  were  purer. 
Some  years  ago  I  took  out  a  life  insurance  policy — an  endow- 
ment policy — and  they  charged  me  seven  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  more  a  year  because  I  was  a  woman.  Years  went  by 
and  I  took  out  another  policy ;  there  was  no  extra  premium. 
Now  the  life  insurance  companies  say  that  women  are  living 
longer  than  men,  and  if  the  men  do  not  watch  out,  it  will  not 
be  very  long  until  they  will  have  to  pay  the  extra  premium 
and  we  women  will  get  insurance  at  bargain  rates ! 

The  use  of  alcohol  shortens  life.  It  is  responsible  for  many 
diseases  that  afflict  men  particularly  in  middle  life.  The  dis- 
ease may  be  diagnosed  as  kidney  trouble ;  it  may  be  diag- 
nosed as  liver  trouble ;  a  man  may  fall  a  victim  to  pneumonia, 
or  an  unexpected  turn,  through  inheritance  or  environment, 
may  develop  tuberculosis ;  if  the  facts  were  known,  it  would 
be  found  that  in  many  cases  the  body  was  made  an  easy  prey 
to  these  diseases  because  of  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors. 

We  are  waging  a  great  campaign  against  tuberculosis. 
There  was  a  time  when  our  efforts  against  tuberculosis  were 
limited  to  urging  our  friends  to  go  to  the  Adirondacks,  to 
Arizona  or  New  Mexico.  We  rejoice  that  to  so  many  people 
have  come  life  and  health  and  hope,  but  there  came  a  time 
in  the  campaign  against  tuberculosis  when  it  became  neces- 
sary to  get  at  the  producing  causes,  the  breeding  places. 
The  State  has  sent  out  exhibits  and  charts  and  we  have  been 
holding  public  meetings  everywhere. 

[248] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

A  couple  of  years  ago  I  was  invited  to  go  to  one  of  the 
public  schools  in  Brooklyn  to  give  an  address.  It  w^as  an 
evening  school  and  my  theme  w^as  to  be  "Alcohol  and  Tu- 
berculosis." When  I  went  into  the  principal's  office,  he  said : 
"Mrs.  Boole,  have  you  brought  any  pictures  with  you?"  and 
I  said,  "No,  I  haven't."  "Well,"  he  said,  "it  is  too  bad,  for 
three-fourths  of  your  audience  is  made  up  of  Roumanian 
Jews  and  they  do  not  understand  any  English."  "Well,"  I 
said,  "I  am  very  sorry,  but  I  am  here  and  I  have  no  pictures, 
and  what  shall  I  do?"  He  thought  a  moment  and  said :  "Well, 
if  you  will  talk  to  them  in  words  of  one  syllable  perhaps  they 
can  understand."  Now  you  know  it  is  not  easy  to  talk  on 
alcohol  and  tuberculosis  in  words  of  one  syllable.  As  the  com- 
pany of  men  and  women  filed  into  the  room  I  just  breathed 
a  little  prayer  that  God  would  help  me  to  so  present  the  truth 
that  they  could  understand.  There  were  about  four  hundred, 
in  ages  from  sixteen  to  sixty,  and  as  I  looked  into  their  faces 
four  words  came  to  me  as  among  the  causes  of  tuberculosis : 
Damp,  Dark,  Dirt,  Drink.  Now  I  did  not  have  to  spend  a 
great  deal  of  time  trying  to  prove  to  them  that  living  in  damp 
houses  brought  on  tuberculosis.  The  last  speaker  had  told 
them  that.  I  did  not  have  to  place  a  great  deal  of  emphasis 
on  the  fact  that  living  in  dark  houses  away  from  the  sunshine 
bred  tuberculosis ;  they  knew  that,  too.  I  did  not  need  to 
place  much  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  dirt  bred  tuberculosis ; 
the  board  of  health  had  told  them  to  clean  up  too  many  times 
not  to  know  that.  But  how  was  I  to  prove  to  them  that  drink 
had  anything  to  do  with  it?     This  is  the  way  I  did  it: 

I  talked  to  them  a  little  while  about  the  various  kinds  of 
alcoholic  drinks.  I  told  them  there  was  alcohol  in  whisky 
and  brandy  and  beer  and  rum  and  gin  and  cider ;  that  it  was 
the  same  alcohol  only  in  different  quantities.  I  then  talked 
a  little  about  the  food  we  eat  and  how  we  take  it  into  our 
mouths ;  it  passes  into  the  stomach  and  from  there  is  made 
over  into  blood  and  nerve  and  muscle  and  brain.     I  told  them 

[249] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

how  if  we  take  liquids  into  the  stomach  a  part  of  the  liquids 
are  absorbed  by  the  coating  of  the  stomach  and  passes  into 
the  blood.  I  then  talked  a  little  bit  about  the  blood ;  how  there 
were  two  parts  to  it,  the  white  and  the  red  part,  and  in  the 
white  part  there  were  the  little  soldiers  that  fight  disease,  so 
that  when  the  germ  of  any  disease  comes  around,  the  little 
soldiers  are  up  in  arms  and  ready  to  fight  and  overcome  it. 
I  told  them  about  taking  alcoholic  liquors  into  the  mouth  and 
stomach  and  emphasized  that  all  these  drinks  had  alcohol  in 
them — how  they  pass  down  into  the  stomach  and  some  of  the 
alcohol  is  immediately  absorbed  by  the  coating  of  the  stomach 
and  passed  into  the  blood  and  the  first  thing  it  does  is  to  make 
the  little  soldiers  drunk  and  they  cannot  fight  any  more,  and 
because  they  cannot  fight  then  people  take  diseases  of  different 
kinds.  Do  you  know  they  acted  as  if  they  understood  about 
those  little  soldiers? 

They  have  been  building  a  new  road  out  in  front  of  my 
house  and  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  Italians  working 
on  the  job.  I  used  to  watch  them  every  day  about  their  work. 
I  watched  them  eat  their  lunch.  I  do  not  know  whether  you 
like  to  watch  a  company  of  men  eat  their  lunch  or  not,  but 
I  do.  I  always  imagine  I  can  tell  what  kind  of  a  wife  a  man 
has  if  I  see  what  kind  of  a  lunch  he  has,  and  so  I  watched 
these  men.  Every  day  a  beer  wagon  came  around  and  left 
three  bottles  of  beer  for  each  man.  When  the  whistle  blew 
at  noon  they  dropped  the  pick  or  shovel  and  sat  down  on 
the  curb  to  eat  their  lunch,  which  usually  consisted  of  a  part 
of  a  loaf  or  a  hunk  of  bread  done  up  in  a  newspaper,  took  a 
penknife  out  of  their  pockets,  wiped  it  off  on  their  trousers, 
cut  off  the  bread  and  ate  it  and  drank  the  beer.  I  wondered 
what  I  could  do,  and  then  one  day  when  the  beer  wagon  came 
along  they  set  a  case  of  beer  down  in  my  front  yard.  That 
was  my  chance,  so  I  went  out  to  the  men  and  said:  "Now, 
some  of  my  neighbors  will  think  this  is  a  splendid  joke  on  me. 
I  am  President  of  the  New  York  State  Woman's  Christian 

[250] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Temperance  Union;  I  do  not  drink  any  beer  and  here  is  a 
case  of  beer  right  in  my  front  yard.  My  neighbor  is  a  saloon 
keeper — he  has  a  saloon  over  in  New  York — now  suppose 
you  put  that  case  over  in  his  yard."  They  moved  the  beer 
into  the  saloon  keeper's  yard,  and  I  asked  the  men  how  much 
it  cost,  and  they  said,  "Wholesale  it  is  four  cents  a  bottle." 
Every  man  had  three  bottles,  and  then  on  the  way  home  he 
had  more  beer  and  after  his  dinner  more  beer,  and  I  esti- 
mated those  men  spent  for  beer  and  tobacco  not  less  than 
twenty-five  cents  a  day,  and  they  spent  it  seven  days  in  the 
week — on  Sundays  as  well  as  week  days.  Remember,  I  was 
talking  to  an  audience  of  Romanish  Jews,  and  I  said  to  them : 
"If  these  men  spend  twenty-five  cents  a  day  for  seven  days 
in  the  week  for  beer,  that  would  mean  they  spend  seven  times 
twenty-five  cents  in  a  week,  and  how  much  is  that?"  and  all 
over  the  room  they  called  out,  "One  dollar  and  seventy-five 
cents."  If  they  keep  that  up  fifty-two  weeks  in  the  year  it 
means  those  men  average  nearly  one  hundred  dollars  a  year 
for  beer. 

If  I  had  said  to  them  you  must  not  live  in  dark  or  damp 
or  dirty  houses  they  would  have  said  they  could  not  afford  to 
pay  any  more  rent,  but  if  added  to  the  amount  they  already 
paid  for  rent  they  put  the  one  hundred  dollars  they  were 
spending  for  beer  every  year,  they  would  not  need  to  live  in 
dark  or  damp  or  dirty  houses. 

So  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  is  not  only  responsible  for 
lowering  bodily  resistance  to  disease  and  hindering  recovery, 
but  it  is  responsible  for  creating  conditions  in  every  com- 
munity that  breed  tuberculosis  and  the  health  of  everybody 
in  the  community  is  menaced  because  of  those  breeding  places. 
Such  people  are  notably  careless,  notably  dirty  and  unhygienic, 
and  drink  is  responsible  for  such  conditions.  The  problem 
of  getting  rid  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  a  health  problem,  second 
in  importance  to  no  other  problem  before  the  American  people 
today,  and  I  ask  the  co-operation  of  you  who  hear  my  voice 

[251] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

this  afternoon  in  the  campaign  for  National  Prohibition  as  a 
means  of  protecting  public  health  and  getting  out  of  the  com- 
munity this  thing  that  menaces  the  health  of  every  citizen. 

A  second  question  in  which  we  are  interested  is  the  ques- 
tion of  public  morals.  Public  morals  are  a  necessity  to  the 
welfare  of  a  community.  We  recognize  this  fact,  for  when 
we  are  advertising  a  town  we  advertise  its  churches  and  its 
schools  and  its  factories  and  manufactories,  but  we  never 
mention  its  saloons.  What  would  you  think  of  anybody  who, 
in  advertising  a  town,  trying  to  get  families  to  move  tliere, 
would  say,  "We  have  one  saloon  for  every  two  hundred  and 
forty  people  in  this  town  and  we  want  you  to  come  and  make 
it  your  home."    Nobody  would  want  to  go  there. 

A  few  years  ago  a  National  W.  C.  T.  U.  Convention  was 
held  in  Portland,  Ore.  We  went  out  on  a  special  train.  We 
stopped  at  a  good  many  places  en  route  and  held  meetings. 
Our  convention  was  about  to  close  when  the  President  of 
the  State  W.  C.  T.  U.  came  in  and  said  that  they  had  an  invi- 
tation for  the  official  train  to  stop  at  a  certain  town  in  Oregon. 
"It  is  the  first  time  that  they  have  ever  appealed  to  us  for 
help,"  and  then  she  told  us  about  it.  She  said  that  when  that 
town  was  started  it  was  formally  dedicated  to  the  devil.  We 
arranged  for  our  train  to  stop.  I  shall  never  forget  that  day. 
We  walked  through  the  streets  to  a  hall  in  the  center  of  that 
place.  There  were  saloons  everywhere.  There  were  drunken 
men  and  women  in  evidence  upon  the  streets.  We  went  into 
this  hall ;  the  two  missionary  pastors  were  there — home  mis- 
sionaries they  were.  Their  salaries  were  paid  by  Eastern 
churches,  and  I  wish  you  could  have  heard  them  appeal  for 
help  from  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union !  They 
said  it  was  almost  impossible  to  do  the  work  they  were  sent 
there  to  do  because  of  the  liquor  traffic.  Last  year  Oregon 
voted  dry,  and  when  I  learned  of  it  and  realized  that  on 
January  1,  1916,  every  saloon  in  that  little  town  in  Oregon 
would  be  closed,  I  just  said,  "Praise  God,   those  ministers 

[252] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

will  now  have  a  chance  to  preach  the  gospel."  They  have 
not  had  a  chance  up  to  this  time  because  the  saloon  has  been 
there,  but  now  the  saloon  will  no  longer  hinder  them.  The 
people  in  the  home  churches  are  interested,  too,  in  our  taking 
the  saloons  out  of  the  way,  for  they  are  helping  to  support 
churches  in  Oregon. 

There  is  a  good  deal  being  said  about  prison  reform  these 
days.  We  believe  in  prison  reform.  We  believe  that  pris- 
oners ought  to  be  so  treated  that  they  will  come  out  of  prison 
better  men  than  when  they  went  in. 

We  sympathize  with  the  man  in  prison,  but  I  confess  to 
you  that  I  sympathize  a  good  deal  more  with  his  wife  and 
children,  who  perhaps  are  suffering  for  food  and  clothing, 
and  I  believe  that  true  sympathy  in  prison  reform  means  that 
we  ought  to  try  to  get  rid  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  stop  the 
source  of  crime.  Jurists  tell  us  that  the  use  of  alcoholic 
liquors  is  responsible  for  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  crimes 
committed.  If  this  is  true,  and  I  am  not  responsible  for  the 
statement,  is  it  not  our  Christian  duty  to  try  and  get  rid  of 
the  liquor  traffic?  Not  that  every  man  that  commits  a  crime 
is  drunk  when  he  does  it,  but  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  is 
responsible  for  the  degeneracy  which  leads  to  crime.  There 
is  seldom  a  criminal  case  in  court  that  drink  has  not  played 
some  part  in  it. 

The  Governor  of  New  York  State  has  been  examining  the 
budget  for  the  coming  year  and  has  been  trying  to  reduce  it 
so  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  levy  a  direct  tax  upon  the 
property  of  our  citizens.  I  noticed  some  things  in  the  budget. 
A  new  insane  asylum,  and  the  State  Board  of  Charities  tells 
us  that  thirty  per  cent,  of  the  insane  are  made  so  through 
drink;  a  new  prison — a  big  prison,  because  all  our  prisons 
are  over-crowded.  I  have  just  been  telling  you  that  the  use 
of  alcohol  is  responsible  for  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  crimes 
that  fill  these  prisons ;  a  new  institution  for  the  feeble-minded, 
and   if   I   go   to   the   institutions    for   the   feeble-minded   and 

[253] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

examine  the  records,  I  will  find  that  not  less  than  fifty  per 
cent.,  and  some  make  it  ninety  per  cent.,  of  the  feeble-minded 
are  the  children  of  drinking  parents.  Do  you  wonder  that 
some  of  us  feel  that  it  would  be  a  wise  thing  to  try  to  get  rid 
of  the  liquor  traffic  in  New  York  State  in  order  to  reduce  taxes 
rather  than  to  levy  an  additional  tax  of  four  millions  on 
saloons,  and  so  make  the  people  of  New  York  financially  inter- 
ested in  continuing  them? 

The  prohibition  of  the  liquor  trafific  is  a  question  of  public 
morals.  We  are  interested  in  getting  rid  of  the  social  evil. 
The  Curran  Investigating  Committee  disclosed  the  fact  that 
there  were  six  thousand  five  hundred  men  in  the  City  of  New 
York  that  are  being  supported  by  twenty-two  thousand  women ; 
they  did  not  say  how  many  men  patronized  the  places,  but 
they  did  say  that  the  receipts  from  the  traffic  in  vice  in  the 
City  of  New  York  in  a  single  year  were  fifty-seven  million 
dollars.  Now  those  are  awful  figures,  and  I  do  not  wonder 
that  you  are  horrified,  but  that  is  not  the  worst.  Those  girls 
do  not  live  very  long.  The  average  life  of  the  fallen  woman, 
the  woman  who  lives  the  life  of  vice,  is  from  three  to  five 
years.  She  early  becomes  the  victim  of  disease  and  drugs  and 
drink,  and  the  awful  thing  to  my  mind  about  the  whole  busi- 
ness is  that  in  from  three  to  five  years  twenty-two  thousand 
other  girls  must  take  their  places,  and  those  girls  are  not  all 
going  to  come  from  New  York.  They  will  come  from  other 
States  and  from  other  Nations,  and  the  drink  traffic  will  be  the 
primary  factor  in  recruiting  them. 

The  Legislature  of  the  State  of  W^isconsin  appointed  a  com- 
mittee to  investigate  the  cause  of  the  social  evil.  Their  com- 
mittee investigated  the  subject  for  fifteen  months,  and  they 
brought  in  their  report  that  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  was 
the  primary  source  of  the  social  evil,  for  they  said  liquors 
robbed  men  of  self-control,  robbed  them  of  judgment,  robbed 
them  of  the  value  of  issues,  robbed  them  of  a  sense  of  pro- 

[254] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

priety;  it  robbed  women  of  just  the  same  things,  and  that  the 
saloon  was  the  primary  contributory  cause. 

I  appeal  to  you  fathers  and  mothers  who  are  trying  to  train 
up  your  boys  to  be  pure  and  who  believe  that  a  man  who  does 
wrong  is  a  fallen  man  just  as  a  woman  who  does  wrong  is  a 
fallen  woman — I  appeal  to  you  to  recognize  that  the  use  of 
alcoholic  liquors  is  in  large  measure  responsible  for  the  pres- 
ence of  this  social  evil  and  especially  of  systematized  vice  in 
this  country,  and  ask  you  to  help  us  in  our  campaign  to  get 
rid  of  the  liquor  traffic  in  order  that  we  may  get  rid  of  the 
preventable  cause. 

The  third  thing  we  are  interested  in  is  questions  of  evangel- 
ization. No  matter  what  our  religious  faith  may  be,  we  believe 
that  the  church  is  a  necessity  to  the  moral  life  of  the  com- 
munity— and  the  very  fact  that  there  are  churches  in  a  com- 
munity has  an  effect  upon  its  moral  life ;  but  has  it  ever 
occurred  to  you  that  the  fruit  of  the  liquor  traffic  in  any  com- 
munity is  the  opposite  of  that  for  which  the  church  stands? 

The  church  stands  for  saving  souls  and  the  liquor  traffic 
hinders  soul  saving.  The  church  stands  for  happy  homes ;  the 
liquor  traffic  makes  unhappy  homes.  The  church  stands  for 
good  society  and  around  the  church  there  centers  the  best 
social  life  in  a  community,  but  around  the  saloon  and  the  bar- 
room there  centers  the  worst  social  life  in  a  community.  The 
church  believes  in  the  Ten  Commandments,  but  the  fruit  of  the 
liquor  traffic  in  any  community  is  the  violation  of  every  one 
of  the  Ten  Commandments. 

I  say  it  again,  and  over  and  over  again,  that  the  fruit  of 
the  liquor  traffic  is  the  opposite  of  that  for  which  the  church 
stands. 

Billy  Sunday  has  taught  us  that  one  of  the  easiest  ways  to 
keep  people  leading  a  Christian  life  is  to  give  them  some  prac- 
tical Christian  work  to  do.  I  remember  the  time  when  if  a 
church  was  engaged  in  special  evangelistic  services  they  did 
not  want  a  temperance  address.   Many  and  many  a  time  I  have 

[255] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

changed  an  itinerary  when  on  a  trip,  because  a  place  was  in 
the  midst  of  gospel  meetings  and  they  were  afraid  it  would 
spoil  the  spirit  of  the  meetings  if  a  temperance  talk  was  given; 
but  Billy  Sunday  has  demonstrated  the  fact  that  he  can  hit 
"booze"  in  every  sermon  he  preaches,  that  he  does  not  have 
any  bigger  crowds  any  time  than  when  he  talks  against 
"booze."  Other  evangelists  are  following  the  example  of  Billy 
Sunday.  I  have  just  been  on  a  tour  through  the  western 
part  of  the  State.  I  found  that  the  evangelists  who  have  been 
holding  meetings  in  many  places  have  all  had  "booze"  sermons, 
and  that  in  every  one  of  those  towns  there  had  been  great 
additions  to  the  membership  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Tem- 
perance Union  as  the  result  of  their  work ;  that  in  every  one 
of  these  towns  a  civic  club  has  been  formed  and  that  it  is 
getting  ready  to  fight  "booze"  and  fight  it  all  the  time.  At  a 
big  meeting  in  Geneva  a  few  weeks  ago,  on  a  Sunday  night 
after  the  "booze"  sermon,  eight  hundred  men  held  up  their 
hands  and  promised  before  God  that  they  would  work  for 
National  Constitutional  Prohibition.  What  does  tliat  mean? 
It  means  that  we  are  beginning  to  recognize  that  one  way  to 
help  evangelistic  work  and  so  help  evangelize  the  world  is  to 
try  to  get  rid  of  the  legalized  liquor  traffic,  and  we  just  praise 
God  for  the  wonderful  development  of  these  past  years.  It  is 
a  great  thing  to  live  in  a  time  when  you  can  see  the  answers 
to  your  prayers.  You  do  not  pick  up  the  paper  but  what  you 
see  something  bearing  on  this  question.    This  is  of  interest: 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Brotherhood  of  American  Locomotive 
Engineers  the  other  day,  eight  hundred  sixteen  engineers  were 
present  and  unanimously  endorsed  National  and  State-wide 
Prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic.  You  applaud  that  because  you 
all  know  that  it  is  safer  for  you  to  ride  on  the  railroad,  because 
the  railroads  require  their  engineers  to  be  total  abstainers,  and 
you  know  that  if  an  engineer  were  to  take  even  one  glass  of 
whisky  before  he  started  on  a  run,  it  might  mean  a  wreck  and 
a  good  many  lives  lost. 

[256] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Then  there  are  the  developments  of  this  awful  war.  Russia 
was  defeated  in  its  war  with  Japan,  every  one  knows,  because 
its  officers  and  soldiers  were  drunken,  and  when  this  war  be- 
gan, notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  were  getting  an  income 
of  thirty  million  dollars  a  month  from  spirituous  liquors,  in  the 
interest  of  efficiency  they  prohibited  the  liquor  traffic.  It  was 
like  a  miracle  in  Russia — whole  villages  were  changed,  they 
say  the  men  are  getting  to  be  as  rosy  cheeked  as  the  lassies,- 
and  the  women,  though  they  do  not  have  very  much  to  eat,  are 
happy  because  their  husbands  do  not  beat  them  any  more. 
The  change  has  been  so  great  that  Russia  has  made  it  perma- 
nent ;  but  that  is  not  all :  Notwithstanding  the  war,  Russia  has 
more  in  its  savings  banks  today  than  it  had  at  the  war's 
beginning. 

Iceland  used  to  be  the  drunkenest  nation  in  all  the  world. 
If  you  were  a  guest  in  a  home,  they  gave  you  a  flask  to  put 
under  the  pillow  at  night,  and  if  you  did  not  empty  it  by  morn- 
ing it  was  an  insult  to  your  host  and  hostess,  but  Iceland  has 
become  a  prohibition  nation,  and  the  day  prohibition  went  into 
effect  they  shipped  out  of  the  country  all  the  liquors  they  had 
on  hand. 

France  has  abolished  the  sale  of  absinthe  and  England's 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer — Lloyd  George — said  the  other 
day  that  England  was  fighting  three  enemies :  Germany, 
Austria  and  Drink,  and  that  he  thought  drink  would  be  the 
hardest  to  overcome.  When  they  reorganized  their  cabinet, 
they  put  Lloyd  George  in  charge  of  the  department  of  muni- 
tions and  created  a  large  committee  to  deal  with  the  drink 
problem  in  England. 

If  America  does  not  look  out,  the  other  side  of  the  ocean 
will  get  ahead  of  us  on  this  question  of  prohibition.  But  we 
are  making  gains.  For  a  good  many  years  Maine  and  Kansas 
and  North  Dakota  were  the  only  prohibition  States  and  then 
Georgia  voted  out  the  liquor  traffic,  and  Mississippi  and 
Tennessee.   North  Carolina  and  Oklahoma   followed.    For  a 

[257] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

good  many  years  there  were  just  eight  dry  States,  and  then 
West  Virginia  voted  dry  by  a  majority  of  one  hundred  ninety- 
two  thousand  five  hundred,  and  last  September  Virginia  voted 
dry  by  a  majority  of  twenty  thousand.  Then  Arizona,  Colo- 
rado, Washington  and  Oregon  voted  dry — fourteen  dry 
States ;  and  then  came  the  developments  in  regard  to  National 
Prohibition. 

It  was  in  1911  when,  by  a  change  and  overturning  in  politics, 
a  new  governor  and  legislature  were  elected  in  Maine,  and 
the  governor  called  a  special  session  of  the  legislature  which 
voted  to  resubmit  their  amendment  for  prohibition.  When 
somebody  said  that  was  to  defeat  prohibition,  they  said,  "Oh, 
no,  we  would  still  have  statutory  prohibition  in  Maine,  but  we 
want  to  get  it  out  of  the  constitution."  All  knew  if  they  got 
prohibition  out  of  the  constitution  any  legislature,  any  day, 
could  repeal  statutory  prohibition.  Mrs.  Lillian  M.  N.  Stevens, 
the  President  of  the  National  W.  C.  T.  U.,  saw  the  situation. 

The  day  before  the  election,  they  had  a  great  parade  of  the 
chl'dren  in  Portland — thousands  of  children  in  line  carrying 
thrir  banners.  The  liquor  men  tried  to  break  up  the  parade; 
they  threw  dimes  and  quarters  in  front  of  the  children ;  they 
thought  the  children  would  stop  to  pick  up  the  money,  but  the 
children  marched  right  on,  marched  for  prohibition. 

That  night  there  was  a  great  meeting  in  the  opera  house, 
and  at  the  close  Mrs.  Lillian  M.  N.  vStevens  issued  her  famous 
proclamation :  Whatever  might  be  the  result  in  Maine  the 
following  day,  she  called  upon  all  religiou.^  and  philanthropic 
organizations  to  unite  with  the  Woman's  Christian  Temper- 
ance Union  in  the  rally  cry,  "On  to  Washington  for  National 
Prohibition."  Maine  did  not  lose  her  law,  but  in  December 
1911,  Mr.  Hobson  introduced  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
an  amendment  to  the  constitution  to  prohibit  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  alcoholic  liquors  for  beverage  purposes.  Other 
organizations  began  to  endorse  prohibition,  formulate  definite 
plans,  and  then  in  1913  there  came  the  great  convention  of 

[258] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  Anti-Saloon  League  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  to  inaugurate 
their  part  of  the  campaign  for  National  Prohibition.  For  three 
days  no  other  subject  was  presented  in  that  convention.  The 
day  following,  the  Council  of  One  Hundred  was  organized,  at 
which  ninety-seven  organizations  were  represented,  and  they 
endorsed  National  Constitutional  Prohibition.  All  the  great 
religious  bodies  endorsed  it.  Then  came  the  call  for  a  great 
meeting  at  Washington  on  the  10th  of  December.  I  wish  I 
had  the  words  with  which  to  describe  to  you  that  great  gather- 
ing of  men  and  women.  A  thousand  men  were  called,  but  more 
than  two  thousand  came,  and  the  women  came.  It  was  a  cold, 
raw  day.  The  men  formed  in  line  over  at  the  Hotel  Raleigh, 
four  abreast,  and  marched  through  the  streets  of  Washington 
carrying  their  banners  on  which  were  inscribed  "National 
Constitutional  Prohibition."  The  women  were  in  line  two 
abreast  and  as  the  men  came  along,  two  women  stepped  by 
their  side,  and  side  by  side  we  marched  to  the  steps  of  the 
Capitol.  I  have  always  been  so  glad  we  did  not  go  tandem ;  I 
have  always  been  so  glad  the  men  did  not  go  first ;  I  have 
always  been  so  glad  the  women  did  not  go  first,  the  men  trail- 
ing behind,  but  side  by  side  we  marched — and  you  will  pardon 
me  when  I  say  I  felt  then  that  it  was  prophetic  of  the  time 
when  men  and  women  will  march  side  by  side  to  the  ballot  box. 
We  marched  to  the  east  side  of  the  Capitol,  to  the  steps  of 
the  portico  where  the  President  takes  the  oath  of  office.  The 
steps  were  crowded  with  a  splendid  company  of  men  and 
women,  and  there  in  the  presence  of  representatives  of  the 
Senate  and  of  the  House,  was  made  the  appeal  for  redress 
from  the  evils  of  the  liquor  traffic,  in  accordance  with  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  We  then  went  to  the  Senate 
and  House  and  heard  reintroduced  the  amendment  to  the 
Constitution.  Remember  the  date,  December  10,  1913.  Decem- 
ber 22,  1914,  we  are  again  in  Washington.  The  scene  is 
changed.  Instead  of  the  steps  of  the  Capitol,  we  are  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  and  an  important  question  is  to  be 

[259] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

discussed.  It  is  the  Hobson  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  The  House  usually  meets  at  twelve.  Today 
they  are  to  meet  at  ten,  for  this  important  business  must  be 
taken  care  of.  We  sit  in  the  gallery.  We  hear  the  House  called 
to  order,  but  first  let  me  describe  the  scene : 

The  place  is  the  room  in  which  the  House  of  Representatives 
meet ;  the  Speaker's  desk  is  in  the  center.  In  front  of  the 
Speaker's  desk  is  a  series  of  charts  showing  the  evil  effects  of 
alcohol.  Later  these  were  taken  into  the  lobby.  Back  of  the 
Speaker's  desk,  extending  clear  across  the  room  and  hanging 
down  nearly  to  the  floor  on  either  side  is  a  piece  of  brown 
manilla  paper,  pasted  on  that  is  the  typewritten  list  of  the 
names  of  all  the  organizations  that  have  endorsed  National 
Constitutional  Prohibition.  They  represent  the  petitions  of 
more  than  twelve  millions  of  people.  They  stayed  there  all 
that  day — a  mute  appeal. 

Speaker  Clark  called  the  House  to  order  at  10  o'clock. 
After  prayer  by  the  blind  chaplain,  Mr.  Henry  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Rules  brought  in  his  report,  and  in  it  he  recommended 
that  the  House  consider  the  Hobson  amendment  for  eight 
hours,  that  it  be  subject  to  amendment,  that  it  be  voted  upon, 
and  do  you  know  those  blessed  men  talked  for  two  mortal 
hours  as  to  whether  they  would  talk  eight  hours  on  the  subject. 

There  were  some  great  speeches — sixty  in  all — made  that 
day,  and  we  heard  them  all.  Strong  arguments  were  presented, 
and  the  debate  lasted  eight  hours. 

About  11 :15  o'clock  at  night  the  roll  was  called.  There  were 
one  hundred  ninety-seven  votes  for  prohibition  and  one  hun- 
dred eighty-nine  against,  a  clear  majority  of  eight,  not  enough 
to  submit  the  amendment,  but  remember,  it  was  only  one  year 
and  twelve  days  from  the  time  the  appeal  was  made,  and  it 
was  the  first  time  the  subject  had  ever  come  up  in  the  House. 
It  was  a  great  victory.  Since  that  time  four  more  States  have 
voted  to  adopt  prohibition — Alabama,  Arkansas,  Iowa  and 
Idaho.    Now  there  are  eighteen  prohibition  States  and  we  are 

[260] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

bound  to  win.  We  are  going  to  win  because  this  is  a  great 
patriotic  question,  a  problem  that  God  wants  you  and  me  to 
help  solve. 

I  was  in  Europe  the  day  war  was  declared,  August  2,  1914. 
We  sailed  from  Naples  on  the  15th  day  of  August  on  the  first 
boat  to  bring  American  refugees  home  from  Italy.  There 
were  accommodations  for  fifty  first  cabin  passengers  and  seven 
hundred  second  cabin  or  converted  steerage.  We  came  con- 
verted steerage,  and  like  some  people  I  know,  it  was  not 
converted  very  much. 

Somebody  made  a  new  definition  of  an  optimist:  "An 
optimist  is  one  that  can  make  a  lemonade  out  of  any  old  lemon 
th?.t  is  handed  to  him."  There  were  a  good  many  handed  to  us 
on  our  way  across  the  ocean,  but  we  lived  through  it. 

One  day  when  we  were  in  the  Mediterranean,  we  saw  a 
cruiser  off  to  the  left.  We  thought,  "Perhaps  the  Germans 
will  get  us,"  but  the  Germans  did  not  get  us.  Later  there  was 
a  lot  of  excitement,  for  the  English  own  Gibraltar,  and  we  did 
not  know  whether  they  would  let  us  through,  and  at  last  we 
saw  in  the  distance  that  great  rock.  It  is  a  splendid  big  rock 
and  we  kept  sailing  toward  it.  It  looks  like  the  picture,  except 
it  does  not  have  the  advertisement  of  the  Prudential  Life 
on  it.  As  we  neared  the  rock  we  saw  a  cruiser  to  the  right 
coming  toward  us.  She  came  just  as  fast  as  she  could  come. 
I  never  saw  a  cruiser  come  so  fast.  She  came  like  a  flying 
machine.  I  was  in  the  front  of  the  boat.  You  can  just  imagine 
our  anxiety.  We  said,  "Is  it  possible  they  will  not  let  us 
through?"  I  happened  to  look  up.  I  could  see  between  the 
cracks  in  the  canvas,  and  I  saw  our  captain  run  up  the  Amer- 
ican flag,  then  I  saw  that  cruiser  reverse  her  engines  and  in  a 
few  minutes  she  was  oflf  in  another  direction.  We  passed 
Gibraltar  under  the  protection  of  the  American  flag. 

We  were  a  good  many  days  in  crossing.  We  saw  a  number 
of  cruisers,  but  we  knew  all  our  captain  had  to  do  was  to  run 
up  the  American  flag. 

[261] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

On  the  seventeenth  day  we  sailed  up  New  York  harbor,  to 
our  dock  in  Brooklyn.  The  band  played  "Home,  Sweet  Home," 
"America,"  and  "The  Star  Spangled  Banner,"  and  we  were 
so  glad  we  were  citizens  of  a  great  country.  But  what  did  I 
learn  by  all  this?  I  learned  what  it  meant  to  have  the  pro- 
tection of  the  American  Government. 

On  the  Fourth  of  July  and  Decoration  Day  and  Labor  Day 
and  other  holidays  we  see  the  American  flag  floating  from 
saloons  and  barrooms,  from  distilleries  and  breweries,  and  we 
know  that  means  that  the  traffic  in  alcohol  has  the  protection 
of  the  American  Government.  I  am  resolved  to  work  with 
all  the  energy  that  God  has  given  me  to  bring  about  the  time 
of  National  Constitutional  Prohibition,  when  no  flag  can  float 
from  the  brewery  or  the  distillery  or  the  barroom  or  the 
saloon,  but  the  flag  of  the  red,  white  and  blue  will  float  over 
the  home  and  church  and  the  school  in  the  interest  of  our 
great  country — a  stainless  flag  in  a  saloonless  Nation ! 


[262] 


CHARLES  M.  SHELDON 


DR.  SHELDON  was  born  in  1857  at  Wellsville,  New 
York.  His  father,  Stewart  Sheldon,  was  a  Congrega- 
tional minister,  serving  parishes  in  New  York,  Rhode 
Island,  Missouri,  Michigan  and  Dakota. 

He  spent  his  boyhood  on  a  farm  in  South  Dakota,  and  grad- 
uated from  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Mass.,  in  1879 ;  from 
Brown  University,  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  in  1883 ;  and 
from  Andover  Theological  Seminary  in  1886. 

He  was  called  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Congregational  Church, 
Waterbury,  Vermont,  in  1886,  and  from  there  to  the  Central 
Congregational  Church,  Topeka,  Kansas,  in  1888,  where  he 
still  is.  For  some  years  he  held  the  relation  of  minister-at- 
large  of  this  church,  with  indefinite  leave  of  absence  to  lecture, 
hold  conferences  and  assist  church  federations  and  kindred 
causes.  It  was  this  leave  of  absence  that  enabled  him  to 
participate  in  the  Flying  Squadron  campaign. 

Dr.  Sheldon  has  achieved  wide  fame  as  an  author.  His 
greatest  book,  "In  His  Steps,"  has  made  him  well  known  the 
world  over,  this  book  having  been  published  in  seventeen 
different  languages.  It  has  attained  a  circulation  of  many 
millions  of  copies  in  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain. 

An  earnest  exponent  of  practical  and  livable  Christianity, 
Dr.  Sheldon  has  won  his  way  into  the  hearts  of  the  people 
through  his  sermons  and  his  books,  with  his  messages  of 
brotherly  love,  righteous  living  and  true  service. 

He  has  been  twice  abroad  by  invitation  from  churches,  the 
last  time  to  hold  a  temperance  campaign  of  three  months  under 
the  auspices  of  the  United  Kingdom  Alliance,  an  organization 
in  Great  Britain  corresponding  to  the  Anti-Saloon  League  in 
America. 

He  came  back  from  a  campaign  in  New  Zealand  and 
Australia — the  other  side  of  the  world — to  join  the  Squadron, 
reaching  Seattle  in  October.  From  that  time  on  to  the  close 
of  the  campaign  he  continued  with  the  Squadron,  winning  the 
hearts  of  thousands  of  his  countrymen  by  his  gentle  kindliness 

[265] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  simple  eloquence.  Five  thousand  six  hundred  and  ten 
copies  of  Dr.  Sheldon's  books  were  sold  from  the  literature 
table  of  the  First  Group  alone  during  the  Squadron  campaign. 


[266] 


WHY  NATIONAL  PROHIBITION? 

THERE  are  six  great  reasons  why  the  liquor  traffic  exists. 
First :  The  drinking  habits  of  mankind.  Ever  since  the 
first  man  made  alcohol,  vast  numbers  of  human  beings, 
both  men  and  women,  have  been  drinking  it. 

Second :  The  liquor  traffic  exists  on  account  of  the  immense 
profits  possible  from  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  liquor.  This 
profit  is  abnormal  and  appeals  to  one  of  the  strongest  passions 
of  mankind — the  love  of  money.  At  the  heart  of  all  the  liquor 
business  can  be  found  the  spirit  of  selfish  gain. 

Third:  The  liquor  traffic  exists  on  account  of  a  curious 
delusion  entertained  by  the  human  race  for  centuries,  that 
alcohol  is  a  beverage,  a  food  and  a  medicine.  Alcohol  is  neither 
of  these  things,  but  a  dangerous  drug.  But  the  human  race  has 
believed  that  alcohol  was  good  for  the  body.  This  belief  has 
kept  the  traffic  going. 

Fourth :  The  liquor  traffic  exists  on  account  of  another 
delusion  held  by  business  men  that  while  the  saloon  is  awful 
and  the  liquor  traffic  is  bad,  there  is  a  money  revenue  from  the 
saloon  license.  No  saloon  ever  paid  a  dollar  into  a  city  treasury 
of  real  revenue,  but  business  men  have  believed  it  did;  this 
has  kept  the  traffic  alive. 

Fifth  :  The  liquor  traffic  exists  on  account  of  its  power  in 
politics.  The  most  shameful  chapter  in  our  American  history 
is  the  chapter  which  the  liquor  interests  have  written.  They 
have  been  able  to  dictate  city  politics,  elect  mayors,  city 
councils,  state  legislatures,  governors,  and  more  than  once  put 
a  man  into  the  White  House. 

Sixth :  The  liquor  traffic  exists  because  of  the  cowardice  of 
otherwise  good  people.  For  ages  men  and  women  calling  them- 
selves Christians  have  been  afraid  of  the  liquor  traffic ;  they 
have  been  afraid  they  would  lose  money  if  they  opposed  it. 
It  has  been  a  great  social  and  political  terror. 

These  are  great  reasons  for  the  existence  of  the  great  wrong, 

[267] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

but  the  world  at  the  present  time  is  in  the  midst  of  a  revolu- 
tion against  the  liquor  traffic.  This  revolution  is  based  on 
three  reasons.   These  are  : 

First :  We  have  found  out  the  truth  about  alcohol ;  scien- 
tifically, the  chemist  now  tells  us  that  alcohol  is  a  dangerous 
drug  to  put  into  the  body.  It  is  the  cause  of  disea?"!,  idiocy 
and  insanity,  and  hastens  along  all  great  diseases.  On  account 
of  this  the  world  of  men  and  women  who  have  been  using 
alcohol  as  a  beverage,  thinking  it  was  harmless  and  even 
beneficial,  are  now  rising  up  against  it.  It  is  the  greatest  foe 
to  the  human  body  that  the  world  contains. 

Second :    The  second  reason  against  King  Alcohol  is  the 
stand  taken  by  the  industrial  world.    Great  corporations  are 
making  rigid  rules  against  the  employment  of  men  who  drink. 
The  Illinois  Steel  Company  puts  up  over  the  gate  where  men 
go  in  to  work  at  night  these  words  in  electric  lights : 
"Did  booze  ever  do  you  any  good?" 
"Did  booze  ever  contribute  anything   to  the  happi- 
ness of  your  family?" 
The  stand  taken  by  the  industrial  world  is  a  tremendous  aid  to 
the  prohibition  cause. 

Third:  The  world  has  found  out  the  truth  about  alcohol 
as  a  source  of  revenue  for  the  city  and  State  and  the  Nation. 
Business  men  are  learning  the  cost  of  the  saloon  is  a  hundred 
times  more  than  any  revenue  from  it.  As  a  business  proposi- 
tion, it  is  a  failure  in  the  long  run ;  the  city,  the  State  and  the 
Nation  must  pay  the  bills  which  alcohol  creates  in  taking  care 
of  the  army  of  dependent  and  incompetent,  in  paying  the  bills 
for  the  crimes  which  flow  out  of  it. 

The  historic  steps  which  have  led  up  to  the  reason  for 
National  Prohibition  are  these:  Free  manufacture  and  sale  of 
alcohol  with  no  restrictions ;  a  low  license  system ;  a  high 
license  system;  moral  suasion,  local  option,  which  is  splendid 
when  two  things  go  together — the  law  and  its  enforcement ; 
State-wide  Prohibition. 

[268] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  next  logical  step  for  the  American  people  is  the  total 
prohibition  of  the  manufacture  of  alcohol.  This  is  the  only 
real  and  lasting  remedy. 

The  reasons  for  National  Prohibition  are  as  follows : 

First :  It  is  a  national  issue  and  requires  national  legislation. 
Uncle  Sam  is  in  the  business  for  the  entire  Nation — he  takes 
revenue  out  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  protects  it.  It  is  not  simply 
a  matter  for  individual  States.     It's  a  matter  for  the  Nation. 

Second:  National  Prohibition  is  demanded  by  the  Prohibi- 
tion States  in  order  to  protect  their  state  rights.  Kansas,  for 
example,  enforces  its  law  as  well  as  it  can,  but  liquor  States 
that  surround  Kansas  make  it  difficult  for  Kansas  to  enforce 
its  laws.  The  state  rights  of  Kansas  need  to  be  enforced  by 
national  statute,  forbidding  liquor  States  shipping  liquor  into 
Kansas,  and  that  is  difficult  to  enforce  until  liquor  ceases  to 
be  made. 

Third :  Another  reason  for  National  Prohibition  is  the  need 
for  uniformity  of  law.  Eighteen  States  at  the  present  time 
have  declared  for  State  Prohibition,  making  the  sale  of  liquor 
in  these  States  a  crime,  and  the  man  who  makes  and  sells 
liquor  is  on  the  same  footing  with  the  horse  thief  or  the 
burglar.  That  which  is  a  crime  for  eighteen  States  should  be 
a  crime  for  forty-eight  States.  If  a  man  makes  and  sells  liquor 
in  Kansas  he  is  sent  to  jail.  If  he  makes  and  sells  the  same 
thing  in  some  other  States  he  is  sent  to  the  legislature.  This 
is  a  legal  absurdity. 

Fourth :  The  greatest  and  best  reason  for  National  Prohibi- 
tion is  the  human  reason.  Humanity  is  worth  too  much  to  be 
destroyed.  The  smallest  child  in  the  biggest  city  on  this  conti- 
nent is  worth  more  than  all  its  buildings.  We  cannot  wait  for 
the  liquor  States  or  the  big  liquor  cities  to  take  action.  Before 
they  will  do  anything  thousands  of  people  will  be  destroyed, 
body,  mind  and  soul.  Humanity  is  worth  more  than  property. 
National  Prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  is  as  necessary  and 
as  logical  as  the  sunrise  after  the  night. 

[269] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  greatest  need  in  America  today  is  the  need  of  a  religious 
revival.  This  is  fundamental.  The  people  will  not  enact  these 
laws  until  their  hearts  are  right — until  they  love  man  more 
than  they  love  money.  The  greatest  prayer  that  an  American 
can  offer  at  the  present  time  is  the  prayer  for  national  right- 
eousness, based  upon  a  religious  vision  of  God  and  man.  That 
is  fundamental  to  everything  else.  National  Prohibition  would 
come  tomorrow  if  the  people  of  this  country  were  real  lovers 
of  God  and  man ! 


[270] 


FOR  A  BETTER  WORLD. 

AMONG  all  the  problems  that  face  us  in  America  the 
problem  of  the  saloon  is  the  simplest  and  easiest  to 
solve.  We  face  many  great  problems.  The  big  city 
is  a  great  problem  for  us  to  work  out.  Then  there  is  the  prob- 
lem of  child  labor.  I  brought  along  with  me  all  that  is  left 
of  a  little  wreath  made  by  a  little  girl  three  years  old  as  she 
stands  in  a  New  York  City  sweatshop  working  with  her  little 
fingers  late  at  night — a  little  three-year-old  Italian  girl,  little 
Marietta,  and  there  are  six  hundred  thousand  little  girls  at 
work  in  America  today  making  things — for  money.  That 
is  a  problem  to  be  worked  out  by  the  American  people.  But 
we  are  not  going  to  solve  that  problem  or  any  other  problem 
of  the  American  people  until  we  learn  how  to  get  together. 

I  found  myself  the  other  day  preaching  in  a  Presbyterian 
Church  where  the  Baptists  had  united  with  the  Presbyterians 
and  called  a  Congregational  man  to  be  their  minister.  When 
the  Baptists  and  Presbyterians  can  do  a  thing  like  that  almost 
anything  is  possible.  (Applause.)  They  never  had  such  a 
good  time  since  they  were  born.  They  worship  in  one  build- 
ing and  work  in  another.  They  have  united  their  young  peo- 
ple's societies,  and  they  united  their  choirs,  and  they  have  the 
most  beautiful  music;  they  united  their  prayer  meetings,  and 
they  have  fine  prayer  meetings ;  they  united  their  preacher, 
and  they  pay  one  man  a  living  salary,  and  they  baptize  people 
any  way  they  wish.  (Laughter.)  Things  like  that  are  going 
to  happen  all  over  this  country  very  soon,  and  we  will  get  our 
Christian  religion  together.  When  we  unite  to  do  God's  work 
we  can  do  wonderful  things.  That  is  a  great  problem  to  be 
worked  out  by  us  in  the  future.  Out  West,  where  I  live,  they 
killed  over  sixty  people  in  a  mining  camp  and  destroyed  a  lot 
of  property,  and  the  Governor  of  the  State  asked  the  President 
to  send  troops  to  quell  the  riot.  And  that  is  another  problem 
to  be  worked  out,   the   great  industrial   problem.     It   would 

[271] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

seem  impossible  that  a  certain  group  of  men  could  get  so 
greedy  for  money  and  want  more  than  their  share,  so  much 
so  that  they  would  have  to  be  guarded  by  law  from  being 
greedy  in  the  market-place.  Then,  there  is  the  race  question. 
After  we  have  solved  the  liquor  problem  and  got  rid  of  the 
saloon,  the  next  thing  that  will  confront  the  American  people 
will  be  the  question  that  centers  around  the  racial  feeling  of 
the  world.  That  feeling  seems  to  be  general.  I  have  never 
had  it  myself,  but  I  know  it  exists,  and  it  is  a  terrible  thing. 
We  have  ten  million  black  people  in  America.  We  cannot  kill 
them,  and  they  will  not  die ;  we  cannot  deport  them,  and  they 
will  not  go  away.  They  are  not  African  any  more ;  they  are 
American  citizens.  Out  in  Kansas  we  have  all  the  peoples  of 
southern  Europe.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  we  have  only 
one  or  two  nationalities  in  Kansas.  The  Medes  and  the  Par- 
thenians,  the  Elamites  and  the  dwellers  beyond  Mesopotamia 
have  come  to  us,  and  we  must  learn  to  live  on  good  terms 
with  all  the  people  of  this  country,  black  and  white,  brown 
and  yellow.  That  is  the  way  we  are  going  to  work  out  God's 
wonderful  will.  We  must  learn  how  to  live  with  them  as 
Christians  should.  I  recently  heard  a  Christian  defined  as  a 
man  who  loves  people  he  does  not  like.  We  do  not  find  it 
hard  to  love  people  that  are  lovable.  I  do  not  find  it  difficult 
to  love  my  wife;  she  is  a  very  lovable  and  beautiful  person, 
if  you  could  see  her.  I  wish  I  could  see  her  now.  I  do  not 
find  it  hard  to  love  my  son;  he  is  a  handsome  fellow,  just 
through  college.  And  I  can  love  most  of  my  relatives  without 
much  effort ;  but  when  it  comes  to  loving  the  multitude,  that 
is  diflFerent.  That  is  the  highest  mark  of  Christian  character, 
to  love  the  multitude ;  it  is  what  we  all  ought  to  do  if  we  call 
ourselves  Christians,  and  we  must  do  it  when  we  come  to  solve 
the  race  problem. 

But  among  the  many  problems  the  one  that  is  easiest  to  solve 
is  the  liquor  question,  because  it  is  all  bad.  There  is  not  a 
good  thing  to  say  about  the  liquor  question ;  it  is  all  bad  from 

[272] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

top  to  bottom,  from  center  to  circumference,  and  when  a 
thing  is  all  bad  we  know  what  to  do  with  it. 

I  was  brought  up  on  a  farm.  My  father  broke  down  after 
he  had  preached  forty-five  years  without  a  vacation,  and  the 
doctor  told  him  he  would  die  if  he  did  not  live  outdoors,  so 
he  moved  out  to  South  Dakota,  bought  a  span  of  mules,  a 
lumber  wagon  and  a  breaking  plow,  and  took  up  a  quarter 
section.  He  paid  twenty-nine  dollars  for  it,  lived  on  it  five 
years,  and  then  it  was  ours.  On  these  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  of  prarie  land  there  was  nothing  but  grass  and  sun- 
shine. We  built  a  log  house,  and  when  it  was  done  it  had  two 
rooms — upstairs  and  downstairs.  Then  we  broke  the  sod  and 
planted  three  acres  of  cottonwood  trees.  One  day  my  father 
sent  me  to  the  potato  patch  to  get  some  potatoes,  and  as  I 
went  along  in  happy,  care-free  boy  fashion,  looking  at  the 
landscape  (most  of  which  was  in  the  sky),  I  almost  placed 
my  bare  feet  right  in  the  center  of  a  great  big  rattlesnake. 
My  foot  was  up  in  the  air,  ready  to  come  down.  I  looked 
down  (I  do  not  know  why)  and  I  jumped  back  about  as  far 
as  a  twelve-year-old  boy  could  jump,  and  then  I  began  to  look 
for  something  to  kill  the  snake.  I  wanted  a  stone,  but  stones 
were  very  scarce  on  our  farm.  Finally  I  went  up  on  one  of 
the  knolls  and  found  there  some  stones  bigger  than  my  fist, 
and  with  one  of  these  stones  I  went  back  to  the  potato  patch, 
hunted  up  the  snake  and  killed  it.  That  snake  was  not  some- 
thing to  be  regulated ;  it  was  not  something  to  be  put  in  a  cage 
and  admission  charged  to  see ;  it  was  something  to  be  killed. 

I  say  to  you,  good  men  and  women  of  Indiana,  the  Flying 
Squadron  is  bringing  to  the  American  people  the  stone  with 
which  to  kill  this  snake  called  the  liquor  traffic.  It  is  National 
Prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic,  and  we  are  going  to  kill  that 
snake.  (Applause.)  That  is  the  reason  the  problem  is  a 
simple  one. 

At  this  point  may  I  say  a  few  words  about  Kansas  ?  Kansas 
has  tried  the  experiment  of  killing  this  whisky  snake  as  thor- 

[273] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

oughly  as  any  State  in  the  Union.  I  am  giving  it  as  a  concrete 
example  of  what  can  be  done  with  the  saloon  people  even 
though  we  face  this  question  under  tremendous  difficulties,  for 
we  have  not  had  a  fair  chance  in  Kansas  to  carry  out  our 
experiment.  As  far  as  we  could  go  we  have  gone.  Kansas 
is  four  hundred  miles  east  and  west,  two  hundred  miles  north 
and  south,  four  thousand  miles  straight  down,  and  as  high 
up  as  you  can  go ;  and  our  motto  is  "To  the  stars  through 
difficulties."  Within  the  boundaries  of  Kansas  live  a  million 
seven  hundred  thousand  people  of  all  kinds.  If  you  want  to 
hear  the  Messiah,  do  not  go  to  Chicago  or  New  York,  Pitts- 
burgh or  Philadelphia,  or  the  large  cities,  go  to  the  little 
country  village  of  Lindsborg,  out  in  Kansas,  and  hear  it  given 
by  Swedish  boys  and  girls  in  Kansas,  and  you  will  say  you 
have  never  heard  it  before.  Over  in  the  next  county  they  all 
speak  German,  and  in  the  next  county  you  must  speak  four 
languages.  We  have  a  lot  of  different  people  out  there,  and 
we  have  had  to  educate  them  to  our  ideals.  We  have  had  a 
prohibitory  law  for  thirty- four  years ;  we  began  to  think  about 
it  sixty  years  ago. 

A  man  once  sued  another  man  for  libel  because  the  man 
called  him  a  rhinoceros.  He  brought  the  case  to  his  attorney, 
and  after  talking  it  over  the  attorney  said:  "You  say  this  man 
called  you  a  rhinoceros  three  years  ago?"  "Yes."  "Well,  why 
are  you  bringing  suit  against  him  now  ?  Why  have  you  waited 
all  this  time?"  "But,"  the  man  replied,  "I  never  saw  a 
rhinoceros  until  yesterday."  (Laughter.)  The  people  in 
Indiana  do  not  have  to  have  a  diagram  to  know  what  that 
means.  There  are  some  States  and  cities  where  the  people 
seem  to  be  in  ignorance  of  the  hideousness  of  the  saloon.  I 
saw  ninety  men  in  a  saloon  in  Philadelphia  the  other  day.  It 
looked  very  ugly  to  me,  but  these  men  seemed  utterly  uncon- 
cerned. 

Kansas  began  to  get  anxious  about  this  matter  sixty  years 
ago,  and  with  four  things  together  we  got  the  law.    That  is 

[274] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

what  we  must  do — get  together.  We  got  the  political  factions 
together ;  then  we  had  the  help  of  the  churches  of  the  State — 
they  all  came  together  on  that  proposition ;  then  we  had  the 
help  of  the  newspapers,  and  that  was  exceedingly  rare  sixty 
years  ago.  I  tell  you,  men  and  women  of  Indiana,  the  time  is 
coming  when  the  journalism  of  this  country  should  take  a 
stand  on  this  question,  when  the  proprietors  and  editors  of 
newspapers  ought  to  take  out  of  their  sheets  liquor  advertise- 
ments. (Applause.)  That  is  negative,  and  the  next  thing  is  to 
step  out  in  the  light  with  us  and  help  us,  and  if  they  had  done 
that  ten  years  ago  we  w^ould  not  be  here  tonight — it  would 
be  done.  I  call  on  the  newspapers  in  this  country  everywhere 
to  come  out  and  join  us,  using  the  tremendous  influence  of  the 
public  press.  We  had  them  in  Kansas;  and  then  we  had  the 
help  of  the  women,  who  could  not  vote  then,  but  they  could 
pray.  They  prayed  short  prayers,  but  short  prayers  can  go 
a  long  way,  so  the  women  prayed  while  the  men  wielded  the 
ballot.  The  women  can  vote  in  Kansas  now,  and  that  makes 
me  think  of  a  story  of  a  very  ardent  suflfragist  who  was  going 
to  march  in  the  forefront  of  a  parade,  but  when  the  day  came 
she  was  ill.  So  she  asked  her  husband  if  he  would  not  take 
her  place  and  carry  a  banner  in  the  parade.  Now,  this  man 
was  a  quiet  sort  of  fellow ;  he  came  home  from  his  business 
at  night,  got  into  his  comfortable  coat  and  slippers  and  took 
up  a  book ;  he  was  not  much  concerned  with  public  affairs, 
indeed,  sometimes  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  vote.  But  he 
loved  his  wife,  so  to  please  her  he  consented  to  march.  The 
day  of  the  parade  came,  and  the  wife  watched  from  the  window 
for  her  husband.  At  last  he  came,  head  down,  shoulders 
drooping,  his  banner  trailing  in  the  dust — never  even  looked 
at  the  house.  When  he  came  home  his  wife  said:  "What  in 
the  world  was  the  matter  with  you,  George?  Why  didn't  you 
hold  your  head  up?  And  your  banner  was  trailing  along." 
"Mary,"  said  he,  "Do  you  know  what  was  on  that  banner?" 
"No,"  she  said,  "What  was  it?"     "Well,  that  banner  had  on 

[275] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

it  these  words,  'Any  man  can  vote,  why  can't  I?'  "  (Laugh- 
ter.) 

The  women  in  Kansas  kept  asking  that  question  of  the 
legislature  for  a  long  time,  and  finally  the  men  in  Kansas  got 
tired  hearing  them  ask  it,  and  they  gave  them  the  right  of 
suffrage  two  years  ago,  and  if  the  men  in  Kansas  want  to 
bring  the  saloon  back  into  the  State  now  (which  they  do  not), 
the  women  wouldn't  let  them,  and  I  want  to  live  long  enough 
to  see  every  woman  in  every  State  in  this  Nation  have  the 
right  of  suffrage.  (Applause.)  My  mother  went  to  the  polls, 
my  wife  goes,  and  my  sisters  go,  and  they  very  often  tell  me 
how  and  what  to  vote  for.  (Laughter.)  We  never  have  any 
trouble  about  it,  and  the  pies  and  cakes  and  bread  are  just  as 
good  as  ever,  and  the  babies  are  cared  for  just  the  same.  And 
the  woman  has  a  right  to  this,  she  has  the  inalienable  right  of 
a  human  being  to  have  a  voice  in  the  government  of  which 
she  is  a  part  when  she  brings  children  into  the  world,  and  in 
Kansas  it  is  settled  on  that  basis  alone.  And  saloons  have 
gone  out  of  the  State  forever.     (Applause.) 

Just  in  a  few  minutes,  what  we  have  got  out  of  this  thing 
for  ourselves :  We  are  the  second  richest  State  in  the  Lmion 
tonight ;  North  Dakota  is  the  first  State  on  this  proposition. 
We  send  forty  thousand  boys  and  girls  to  high  school,  and 
twenty-one  thousand  men  to  universities,  because  the  farmers 
have  money  to  spend  for  educating  their  children.  Missouri, 
with  all  her  saloons,  only  averages  twenty  dollars  apiece  in  her 
savings  banks,  while  Kansas,  without  saloons,  averages  one 
hundred  dollars  apiece  in  savings  banks.  In  Missouri  only 
one  farmer  out  of  every  hundred  has  an  automobile ;  in 
Kansas  one  farmer  out  of  every  five  has  a  good  machine — 
and  they  are  not  all  one  kind  of  machine,  either.  (Laughter.) 
I  went  to  a  little  country  schoolhouse  in  the  middle  of  the 
State  to  give  a  lecture,  and  I  counted  twenty-nine  automobiles 
and  only  nine  horses  and  buggies.  More  farmers  in  Kansas 
own  automobiles  than  in  any  other  State.     We  doubled  our 

[2761 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

bank  deposits  in  ten  years ;  we  put  into  one  savings  bank  five 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  dollars  the  first  six  months  after 
the  State  went  dry.  I  can  take  you  into  one  town  in  Kansas  of 
ten  thousand  people,  a  railroad  intersection  point,  and  in  that 
town  there  is  only  one  policeman  to  keep  order,  and  he  is 
asleep  half  the  time.  There  is  not  a  drop  of  alcohol  in  the 
place.  I  live  in  a  city  of  fifty  thousand  people,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Santa  Fe  System;  it  is  the  capital  of  the  State. 
We  have  not  a  saloon  in  the  place,  and  where  the  saloons  used 
to  be  are  brick  buildings  occupied  as  stores  and  factories  and 
employing  four  or  five  times  as  many  people  as  the  saloon 
ever  did.  That  is  what  will  happen  to  your  Indiana  cities  when 
the  saloon  gets  out. 

I  cannot  begin  to  tell  you  what  we  have  got  out  of  this  law — 
the  tremendous  advantages,  because  you  cannot  put  some 
things  into  words.  But  come  to  my  town  and  see  the  city. 
Fifty  thousand  people  live  happily  there.  I  do  not  know  where 
you  would  get  a  drink  if  you  were  sick;  we  do  not  allow  it 
to  be  sold  in  drug  stores.  If  you  asked  a  drug  store  man  for 
a  drink,  saying  you  needed  it,  he  would  say,  "You  must  be  a 
stranger  here.  Go  out  and  get  yourself  some  buttermilk." 
(Laughter.)  We  have  six  hundred  and  fifty  paupers  in  the 
poorhouse,  all  told;  seven  hundred  and  twenty-four  in  the 
penitentiary,  but  only  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  Kansas-bom 
men.  A  tremendous  change  has  taken  place.  Ask  the  supreme 
court  judges,  the  governor,  the  members  of  the  legislature,  ask 
the  business  men,  the  men  in  charge  of  the  one  hundred  and 
thirty-six  banks  in  the  State,  and  they  will  tell  you  that  the 
value  of  every  acre  of  land  has  been  increased  by  the  pro- 
hibitory law.  Ask  the  commercial  clubs  and  the  newspaper 
men — not  a  newspaper  prints  a  liquor  advertisement.  Thou- 
sands of  young  men  have  been  born  and  reared  in  Kansas 
who  have  never  seen  a  saloon  or  a  saloon  bar,  and  never  tasted 
alcohol.   When  we  stop  making  the  stuff  the  thirst  for  it  will 

[277] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

die  out  of  the  human  race,  and  we  will  have  such  a  race  as 
God's  sun  never  shone  upon.    (Applause.) 

It  is  not  buildings  we  are  trying  to  save,  it  is  human  beings. 
I  spoke  this  afternoon  of  your  beautiful  monument.  I  stopped 
to  look  at  it  as  I  passed,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  things  I 
have  ever  seen.  I  have  traveled  a  good  deal,  seen  beautiful 
things  all  over  the  continent,  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
but  all  these  beautiful  things  are  not  to  be  compared  with  the 
value  of  one  boy  that  I  saw  going  into  a  saloon  tonight.  He 
made  me  think  of  my  son;  his  face  was  still  young  and 
innocent.  I  go  into  the  saloons  sometimes  to  see  what  they 
are,  and  I  find  always  the  same  thing — I  find  human  beings 
being  robbed — our  young  men,  almost  boys — they  were  boys, 
and  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  my  son  and  of  how  much  I 
would  take  for  him.  You  will  protect  your  beautiful  monu- 
ment from  injury,  and  I  hope  you  will  protect  your  boys.  You 
could  put  up  another  monument,  if  through  some  upheaval  it 
should  be  destroyed,  but  how  are  you  going  to  replace  the 
multitude  of  boys  that  are  destroyed  every  year?  Little 
Marietta  is  a  three-year-old  Italian  girl:  What  of  that?  She 
is  a  human  being  and  worth  more  than  all  the  buildings  in 
New  York.  I  try  to  send  postcards  to  my  son  from  the  dif- 
ferent places  I  visit,  but  I  can  only  find  pictures  of  buildings. 
Why  do  they  not  put  the  faces  of  people  on  these  cards  instead 
of  buildings?  I  do  not  care  for  buildings.  A  human  being  is 
worth  more  than  the  Woolworth  tower.  But  here  are  human 
beings  robbed  by  the  liquor  trafific.  Little  Marietta  has  to  work 
because  her  father  is  a  common  drunkard.  He  cannot  step 
out  of  his  sweatshop  without  passing  a  saloon,  and  it  is  what 
the  saloon  gets  from  him  that  makes  it  necessary  for  little 
three-year-old  Marietta  to  work. 

I  showed  that  wreath  the  other  day  to  the  people  in  a 
penitentiary.  They  sat  there,  stolid  and  upright — half  of  them 
no  worse  than  a  good  many  people  outside  who  have  never 
been  caught — and  when  I  was  through  one  man  got  up  and 

[278] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

said,  "Can  I  speak  to  that  man?"  He  was  given  permission 
and  came  down  to  the  table  and  put  down  a  Httle  purse  and 
said,  "Please  send  that  to  little  sister."  There  was  only  forty 
cents  in  it,  and  he  is  in  prison  for  life,  and  yet  he  had  a  heart 
full  of  sympathy  for  "little  sister,"  and  I  thought  of  the  well- 
fed,  well-clothed,  well-cared-for  men  and  women  who  have 
no  thought  for  these  little  children — the  victims  of  the  liquor 
traffic. 

God  give  us  tonight  a  vision  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man ! 
I  think  that  is  what  we  need  more  than  anything  else  in  this 
gray  old  world,  here  and  in  Europe,  a  vision  of  the  Brother- 
hood of  Man ! — the  thing  the  Master  saw  as  he  stood  in  his 
carpenter  shop  making  things  for  the  people  of  Nazareth, 
when  he  heard  the  voice  calling,  calling  him  to  come  out  and 
tend  the  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  If  we  could  have  that 
vision.  Oh,  men  and  women  of  Indiana,  we  could  do  this 
mighty  thing,  and  free  the  people  from  this  great  wrong! 

If  I  could  hold  within  my  hand 

The  hammer  Jesus  swung, 
Not  all  the  gold  in  all  the  land, 
Nor  jewels  countless  as  the  sand. 

All  in  the  balance  flung. 
Could  weigh  the  value  of  that  thing 
Round  which  His  fingers  once  did  cling. 

If  I  could  have  the  table  He 

Once  made  in  Nazareth, 
Not  all  the  pearls  in  all  the  seas 
Nor  crowns  of  kings  or  kings  to  be 

As  long  as  men  have  breath. 
Could  buy  that  thing  of  wood  He  made — 
The  Lord  of  Lords  who  learned  a  trade. 


[279] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Yea,  but  His  hammer  still  is  shown 
By  honest  hands  that  toil, 

And  'round  His  table  men  sit  down ; 

And  all  are  equals,  with  a  crown 
Nor  gold  nor  pearls  can  soil ; 

The  shop  at  Nazareth  was  bare — 

But  Brotherhood  was  builded  there. 


[280] 


CLARENCE  TRUE  WILSON 


DR.  CLARENCE  TRUE  WILSON,  General  Secretary 
of  Temperance  Work  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  was  born  in  Milton,  Delaware,  April  24,  1872. 
He  was  educated  in  St.  John's  College,  Annapolis ;  received 
the  degree  of  A.B.  at  the  University  of  California ;  B.D.  at 
McClay  College  of  Theology,  Los  Angeles ;  Ph.D.  at  San 
Joaquin  Valley  College,  and  D.D.  at  St.  John's. 

He  was  ordained  a  deacon  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  at  eighteen  and  an  elder  at  twenty,  and  became  pastor 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  at  Seaford,  Delaware, 
in  1889.  He  has  also  served  churches  at  Seaclifif,  L.  L ;  Pasa- 
dena, Cal. ;  San  Diego,  Cal. ;  Newark,  N.  J.,  and  Portland, 
Ore.  He  became  National  Secretary  of  the  Temperance  So- 
ciety of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  1910. 

From  1906  to  1908  Dr.  Wilson  was  President  of  the  Oregon 
Anti-Saloon  League.  He  is  widely  known  as  a  platform  lec- 
turer and  temperance  orator,  and  also  as  an  author,  some  of 
his  best  works  being :  "The  Things  That  Are  to  Be" ;  "Pro- 
hibition versus  High  License" ;  "A  World  Vision  of  the  Tem- 
perance Reform" ;  "Dry  or  Die — the  Anglo-Saxon  Dilemma." 

A  man  of  distinguished  appearance,  a  deep  thinker,  a  force- 
ful speaker.  Dr.  Wilson  commands  attention  and  respect 
everywhere;  his  addresses  are  the  result  of  exhaustive  re- 
search and  clear  thinking,  and  are  worthy  and  effective  contri- 
butions to  the  temperance  cause. 

Dr.  Wilson  started  with  the  Flying  Squadron  at  its  first 
meeting  in  Peoria,  and  continued  with  it  from  there  to  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  back  to  Omaha.  He  came  to  fill  the  place 
of  Dr.  Sheldon,  whose  absence  at  the  beginning  was  occa- 
sioned by  his  inability  to  reach  America  earlier  than  October. 

Dr.  Wilson's  work  as  a  member  of  the  Squadron  was 
effective  and  commanding. 


[283] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
POT  SHOTS  AT  LIQUOR  FALLACIES. 

Cracked  Chestnuts. 

Your  memorable  sayings  are  proverbs  of  ashes, 
Your  defenses  are  defenses  of  clay.      Job  13  :12. 

There  are  some  chestnuts  that  have  been  carried  around 
and  worn  until  they  are  smooth.  I  do  not  expect  to  get  any 
kernel  out  of  them  even  now,  but  I  propose  to  crack  a  few 
of  them  for  the  same  purpose  that  my  Irish  friend  cut  a  hole 
in  the  cellar  wall.  When  asked  why  he  dug  the  window 
through,  he  replied :     "To  let  some  of  the  dark  out." 


[285] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"SALOON  KEEPING  IS  A  LEGITIMATE  BUSINESS !" 

CHRISTIAN  civilization  is  supported  by  four  pillars, 
without  which  it  could  not  stand.  They  are :  Busi- 
ness integrity,  Sabbath  observance,  purity  in  home  life, 
and  sobriety  among  the  people.  There  is  an  institution,  which, 
like  a  frowning  fortress  of  perdition,  fires  its  volleys  against 
these  four  corner  posts.  Against  business  integrity  it  fires 
the  gambling  mania.  Against  Sabbath  observance,  Sunday 
desecration.  Against  purity  in  home  life,  it  licenses  the  place 
of  shame,  and  against  the  average  sobriety  it  sends  forth  a 
stream  of  drunkenness. 

The  first  thing  to  make  clear  is  that  this  liquor  power  is 
not  a  business,  but  a  crime.  All  human  activities  are  divided 
into  three  classes — business,  charity,  and  crime.  Business  is 
commodity  or  service  for  profit.  Charity  is  the  same  com- 
modity or  service  without  profit.  Crime  is  the  profit  without 
the  commodity  or  service.  The  average  man  spends  his 
money  anyway,  but  if  he  spends  it  in  the  butcher  shop  he 
has  a  beefsteak  on  the  table  to  show  for  it.  If  he  spends  it 
at  the  grocery  store  he  has  good  provisions  in  the  pantry. 
If  he  deposits  it  in  the  bank  he  has  a  bank  account  laid  up 
for  a  rainy  day.  If  he  spends  it  in  the  millinery  store  his 
wife  is  a  well-dressed  woman,  with  a  hat  you  can't  see  over. 
But  one  may  spend  his  money  every  day  for  thirty  years  in 
the  saloon,  and  he  will  have  nothing  but  a  red  nose  to  show 
for  his  cash. 

If  business  must  give  adequate  value  for  money  received, 
then  the  saloon  is  not  a  business,  but  must  take  its  place  with 
the  gambling  den  and  the  place  of  shame,  as  a  crime  against 
society. 

Some  one  may  claim  that  the  saloon  helps  to  pay  his  taxes, 
but  this  is  a  great  error.  Can  you  squeeze  water  out  of  a 
sponge?  If  you  think  you  can,  go  down  to  the  drug  store 
and  buy  one — buy  one  and  squeeze  it  and  see  how  much  water 

[287] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

you  will  get.  The  only  way  you  can  get  water  out  of  a  sponge 
is  to  bring  the  water  in  a  basin,  put  the  sponge  down  in  it  and 
let  it  absorb  it,  then  you  can  squeeze  some  of  it  back.  If  you 
want  to  get  money  out  of  a  saloon,  the  only  way  is  to  put  the 
saloon  down  in  the  community  and  for  every  twenty-two 
thousands  dollars  it  takes  from  the  pockets  of  the  people 
you  can  squeeze  one  thousand  of  it  back  in  the  form  of 
revenue.  To  pour  a  golden  stream  of  revenue,  the  saloon 
must  pick  the  pockets  of  the  poor.  If  you  add  to  the  twenty- 
two  thousand  dollars  thus  taken  from  the  people  for  every 
one  thousand  dollars  paid  back  the  sum  it  costs  the  people 
to  take  care  of  its  results  in  courts,  jails,  almshouses,  de- 
preciation of  property,  withdrawal  of  money  from  circula- 
tion, it  would  be  another  twenty-eight  dollars  for  every  one  dol- 
lar gotten  back.  This  whole  license  system  by  which  we  legalize 
a  great  wrong  is  a  colossal  blunder,  lame  in  logic  and  a  failure 
in  practice ;  wrong  in  principle,  and  powerless  as  a  remedy ; 
foolish  as  a  financial  investment  and  a  Judas  Iscariot  deal 
in  morals !  It  has  coined  buzzard  dollars  to  lay  on  the  closed 
eyes  of  our  Nation's  dead  conscience.  Every  cent  of  it  is  the 
price  of  our  shame. 

This  continued  rum  traffic  is  a  standing  insult  to  every 
wife  and  mother  in  our  land;  it  offers  to  take  their  sons  to 
ruin  them ;  their  daughters,  to  destroy  them.  There  is  not  a 
flower  in  the  hat  of  a  rumseller's  wife  that  did  not  cost  roses 
from  the  cheeks  of  some  other  man's  wife,  nor  a  flashing 
diamond  in  the  bosom  of  a  bartender  or  brewer  that  was  not 
purchased  at  the  cost  of  jewels  of  manhood  from  our  Amer- 
ican homes.  For  you  can't  run  a  sawmill  without  logs,  nor  a 
gristmill  without  grain,  nor  a  rock  crusher  without  feeding 
it  rocks,  and  you  cannot  run  an  American  saloon  without 
turning  these  mothers'  boys  into  drunkards  and  their  daugh- 
ters into  drunkards'  wives.  Will  you  join  me  in  pledging  high 
Heaven  that  you  will  stand  against  this  thing  any  time  and 
anywhere  ? 

[288] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC  HAS  A  NATURAL  RIGHT 
TO  EXIST  AND  CARRY  ON  BUSINESS !" 

THE  Supreme  Court  has  declared  that  no  man  has  a 
natural,  inherent,  or  constitutional  right  to  engage  in 
the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors,  and  that  the  only  way 
he  can  acquire  this  right  is  to  secure  a  license  which  is  of  the 
nature  of  a  permission  issued  by  the  local  authorities.  The 
right  of  the  local  authorities  to  permit  implies  the  right  to 
prohibit.  This  was  the  decision  of  our  Supreme  Court  that 
puts  the  responsibility  for  the  licensing  of  the  liquor  traffic 
upon  the  sovereign  States.  But  a  later  decision,  which  makes 
it  impossible  for  a  single  State  to  control  interstate  commerce, 
makes  the  regulation  or  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  within 
the  state  borders  an  impossibility  and  widens  the  issue  to  rum 
rule  for  all  the  Nation,  or  National  Prohibition  by  a  constitu- 
tional amendment,  and  raises  the  slogan :  "On  to  Wash- 
ington !" 

It  is  a  piece  of  folly  for  temperance  reformers  to  center 
their  fire  on  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  saloons  of 
the  Nation  when  four  or  five  thousand  breweries  that  manu- 
facture this  liquid  poison  could  easily  be  closed  down,  and 
the  traffic  would  cease  through  the  cutting  off  of  its  source. 
Give  us  a  dry  law  with  a  dry  administration  emanating  from 
Washington,  and  having  the  moral  backing  of  national  author- 
ity and  power,  and  the  traffic  will  cease.  The  people  who 
think  prohibition  cannot  be  made  to  prohibit  must  remember 
that  it  has  never  had  a  fair  trial.  To  prohibit  an  institution 
having  the  whole  weight  of  our  national  administration  and 
laws  on  the  other  side,  to  be  whacking  at  the  mere  outshoots 
of  the  evil,  the  saloons,  instead  of  the  root  of  the  evil,  the 
manufacturers,  has  been  our  colossal  blunder.  What  we  want 
is  National  Prohibition  of  the  manufacture  of  intoxicants, 
of  their  sale  and  interstate  commerce.  We  have  tried  a  wet 
law  and  a  wet  administration,  and  we  have  had  things  wet; 

[289]      - 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

we  have  tried  a  dry  law  and  a  wet  and  dry  administration, 
and  found  things  damp;  but  a  dry  law  and  a  dry  administra- 
tion will  make  them  dry  as  Kansas.  We  have  trifled  long 
with  alcohol.  Has  the  individual,  the  family,  the  church,  or 
the  State  gained  anything  but  sin  and  shame  from  the  legalized 
outlaw,  the  deadly  upas  which  is  planted  in  the  soil  of  the 
great  Republic  and  has  spread  out  its  roots  and  branches  over 
all  the  land?  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  natural  right  to  do 
wrong,  nor  can  there  be  a  legal  right  to  injure  society.  The 
people  themselves  cannot  confer  such  a  right,  much  less  their 
representatives.  The  court  decision  of  Samuel  R.  Artman, 
of  Indiana,  will  one  day  be  the  law  of  Christendom.  Law 
may  pronounce  what  is  right,  but  it  cannot  make  rights,  much 
less  make  them  out  of  wrongs. 


[290j 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"WHY   STIR   EVERYBODY  UP   ON   THE   TEMPER- 
ANCE QUESTION?" 

BECAUSE  the  license  system  by  which  we  perpetuate 
the  iniquitous  Uquor  traffic  is  eternally  wrong  and  can 
never  be  settled  until  it  is  settled  right.  Unsettled 
moral  problems  have  no  mercy  on  the  peace  of  nations.  And 
secondly,  in  church  and  state,  agitation  is  better  than  stagna- 
tion. Two  frogs  down  a  well  jumped  into  a  pail  of  cream. 
One  said:  "Partner,  it's  no  use;  we  are  gone",  and  settled 
down  to  drown,  but  the  other  started  such  an  agitation — 
hitting  and  kicking — that  when  he  stopped  to  catch  his  breath 
he  found  himself  standing,  monarch  of  all  he  surveyed,  on 
a  little  island  of  butter. 

Two  different  ministers  go  into  the  same  community.  One 
feels  himself  surrounded  and  surrenders;  the  other  hits  and 
kicks  until  he  has  churned  indifference  into  public  sentiment 
for  moral  decency  to  stand  on. 

There  are  some  passions  that  you  had  better  not  stir  unless 
you  want  to  get  into  trouble.  The  one  is  love  of  home  and 
the  other  love  of  country.  And  the  drink  traffic  has  put  his 
hand  down  on  both  of  these ;  and  when  the  Anglo-Saxon 
realizes  this  he  will  rise  up  in  his  wrath  and  destroy  the  drink 
traffic. 

Those  who  constitute  the  vicious  minority  have  always  been 
active,  while  the  righteous  majority,  like  their  churches,  were 
found  too  often  "closed  for  the  week."  When  not  closed  up 
they  have  often  been  asleep,  dreaming  that  a  giant  wrong  of 
the  magnitude  of  the  liquor  power  would  abdicate  for  the 
crooked  little  compromise  of  our  license  system. 

Of  course  no  law  can  give  good  government  automatically, 
but  given  a  prohibitory  law  and  the  saloon  is  on  the  run,  and 
a  dozen  righteously  aggressive  men  can  bring  in  a  reign  of 
righteousness  anywhere.  Law  enforcement  is  easy  when  you 
have  the  man.  Every  joint  keeper  in  Kansas  found  that  one 
woman  was  too  much  for  them. 

[291] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"BUT  ISN'T  THIS  SENTIMENT  A  MERE  SPASM?" 

IT  IS  the  culmination  of  causes  that  run  back  into  the  years 
and  must  run  on  forever.  I  shall  name  some  of  the  causes 
that  contribute  to  the  effects  we  now  see. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  International  Sunday  School  Lesson 
System  prescribed  a  quarterly  temperance  lesson,  and  for 
thirty  years  every  Sunday  School  boy  and  girl  has  studied 
and  been  impressed  with  Bible  teaching  on  the  evils  of  strong 
drink.  The  children  then  ten  years  old  are  now  thirty  and 
forty.  The  impressions  of  their  youth  are  the  settled  con- 
victions of  their  manhood.  These  convictions  will  be  regis- 
tered. 

Twenty  years  ago  the  public  school  system  began  the  sys- 
tematic instruction  of  our  children  upon  the  nature  of  alco- 
holic liquors  and  their  effects  upon  the  human  system.  They 
learned  from  scientific  text-books  that  alcohol  is  never  a  food, 
but  always  a  poison;  never  to  be  put  into  the  healthy  body, 
and  though  useful  as  a  medicine,  always  dangerous  as  a  bev- 
erage; stimulating,  not  as  a  strengthener,  but  as  an  irritant. 

I  have  mentioned  but  two  causes.  There  are  others.  The 
life  insurance  companies,  the  great  railway  corporations,  look- 
ing for  sober  men,  the  secret  societies  that  will  take  neither 
liquor  sellers  nor  liquor  drinkers  into  their  membership,  the 
voice  of  the  church,  the  decisions  of  the  courts,  the  police 
records,  all  unite  to  point  out  the  saloon  as  the  people's 
Supreme  Foe. 

Whatever  may  he  said  about  the  divided  churches  and  the 
warring  denominations,  it  will  he  found  that  we  all  stand  to- 
gether when  the  time  comes  to  close  in  on  the  liquor  traffic. 
For  every  man  engaged  in  Christian  work  soon  learns  that  the 
one  institution  that  blocks  his  work  and  destroys  what  he  is 
trying  to  build  tip  is  the  saloon. 


[293] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

No  man  ever  labored  for  the  youth  of  his  community  with- 
out getting  a  secret  dread  of  the  counter  influence  of  the 
saloon  and  looking  upon  it  as  his  chief  rival.  And  then  I 
can  speak  for  preachers,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  workers,  Sunday  School 
teachers,  day  school  teachers,  who  are  more  interested  in  the 
welfare  of  their  scholars  than  the  salary  suggests,  all  mission 
workers  and  parents,  when  I  say  we  are  not  going  to  vote 
much  longer  for  our  worst  rival.  We  have  other  plans  for 
our  young  people  than  feeding  them  to  the  saloon, 

//  we  do  not  give  the  ballot  to  the  women  to  speak  for  them- 
selves, then  every  man  who  has  a  spark  of  manliness  in  him 
will  remember  that  when  he  comes  to  vote  he  is  there  in  a 
representative  capacity  and  must  represent  the  interests  of 
wives  and  mothers  at  home,  and  there  is  not  an  open  saloon 
anywhere  that  is  not  a  standing  insult  to  every  mother  and 
wife  in  the  State. 


[294] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"TEMPTATION  MUST  NEEDS  COME!" 

THIS  is  the  scripture  selected  by  the  liquor  dealers  and 
put  on  their  placards  in  a  recent  campaign.  As  if  we 
had  to  side  with  the  devil  in  order  to  make  the  Lord  a 
true  prophet.  They  did  not,  however,  quote  the  balance  of 
the  verse: 

"But  woe  unto  the  man  by  whom  the  tempta- 
tion Cometh.  It  were  better  that  a  millstone 
were  hanged  about  his  neck  and  that  he  be 
drowned  in  the  midst  of  the  sea  than  that  he 
should  cause  one  of  the  least  of  these  that  be- 
lieve on  me  to  stumble." 

What  a  peculiar  thing  that  some  folks  should  try  to  quote 
the  scriptures  when  you  think  of  the  side  they  advocate ! 

"Prohibition  attempts  to  remove  temptation  from  man,  while 
God's  plan  is  to  permit  temptation  to  exist  in  order  to 
strengthen  the  moral  power  of  man.  Therefore,  prohibition 
is  not  in  accord  with  God's  methods."  The  fallacy  involved 
in  this  is  due  to  the  supposition  that  the  object  of  prohibitory 
law  is  to  make  men  moral  by  compulsion.  But  criminal  law, 
and  this  among  others,  is  not  for  this  purpose.  We  don't 
punish  theft  to  make  either  the  thief  or  his  victim  moral. 
And  we  propose  to  forbid  the  sale  of  liquor,  not  to  make 
the  liquor-selling  or  the  liquor-seller  or  the  liquor-drinker 
moral,  but  to  stop  a  traffic  that  injures  every  one  in  the  com- 
munity by  disturbing  public  order,  by  endangering  personal 
safety,  by  increasing  public  taxes  for  the  support  of  paupers 
and  criminals,  by  demoralizing  legitimate  productive  industries 
and  by  cursing  the  homes,  on  which,  in  the  last  analysis,  a 
nation  is  built,  and  in  which  its  future  citizens  receive  their 
bent  toward  virtue.     It  is  to  prevent  this  injury,  positive  and 

[2951 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

enormous,  to  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  to  every  indi- 
vidual in  it,  that  prohibitory  law  is  advocated. 

Is  it  the  State's  duty  to  supply  temptation  so  that  men's 
moral  nature  will  be  tested  and  strengthened?  That  is  what 
the  objection  involves,  for  no  saloon  can  be  legal  unless  the 
State  protects  it  with  its  courts,  its  police,  its  militia,  if  neces- 
sary; nay,  may  even  summons  any  citizen  to  take  arms  in  its 
defense. 

If  the  supplying  of  temptation  is  an  important  aid  to  the 
development  of  virtue,  then  why  is  not  the  keeping  of  a  saloon 
as  important  and  beneficial  to  the  community  as  teaching  a 
public  school  or  preaching?  If  it  is  God's  method  of  increas- 
ing men's  virtue,  then  why  should  not  you  and  your  son  keep 
a  saloon,  or  conduct  a  gambling  house,  or  publish  obscene 
literature  ? 

But  the  objection  involves  much  positive  disrespect  to  the 
devil.  It  implies  that  he  is  not  equal  to  the  task  of  supplying 
the  world  with  sufficient  temptations,  and  the  development  of 
virtue  requires  that  we  go  into  active  partnership  with  him. 
We  believe  in  giving  the  devil  his  due,  and  there  is  little  cause 
to  call  in  question  his  activity  or  ability  in  our  times. 

Temptation  is  the  devil's  job,  not  ours.  The  average  saloon 
as  a  character  builder !  Such  a  suggestion  is  enough  to  make 
a  half-way  decent  man  blush  up  to  the  roots  of  his  horns. 


[296] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"YOU  CAN'T  MAKE  MEN  GOOD  BY  LAW!" 

THIS  is  a  bit  of  folly  we  do  not  try,  but  you  have  made 
men  bad  by  law.  What  we  quarrel  about  is  the  latter 
attempt,  whether  the  other  can  be  done  or  not.  The 
law  is  a  great  sentiment  maker.  Besides,  it  fixes  the  environ- 
ment of  many  absolutely. 

But  is  it  true  that  men  cannot  be  made  good  by  law?  The 
supposition  of  criminal  laws  is  that  they  do  have  some  re- 
straining influence  among  men.  They  not  only  serve  to  punish 
bad  men,  and  to  protect  good  men,  but  to  keep  many  individ- 
uals out  of  a  life  of  crime  which  they  would  have  entered  if 
there  had  been  no  such  laws.  I  apprehend  that  we  are  a  great 
deal  better  under  law,  and  by  reason  of  law,  than  we  would 
be  without  any  law.  No  doubt  there  is  a  good  deal  less  of 
crime  in  the  State  than  if  we  had  no  criminal  code.  By  so 
much  are  men  made  better  by  reason  of  the  law.  A  good 
prohibitory  law,  reasonably  enforced,  would  serve  to  improve 
the  character  and  lives  of  many  people.  Saloon  keepers  would 
be  forced  to  go  into  some  decent  business,  which  would  make 
them,  their  wives,  and  children  better.  Many  a  young  man 
who  has  been  subjected  to  temptation  and  has  just  started  on 
the  road  to  ruin  would  be  saved  by  a  law  shutting  up  saloons. 


[297] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"CAN'T  MAKE  MEN  MORAL  BY  COMPULSORY 
LEGISLATION !" 

PROHIBITION  is  not  an  attempt  to  make  men  moral. 
We  recognize  the  fact  that  you  cannot  strengthen  the 
man's  will  nor  weaken  his  appetites  by  statute  law.  But 
what  is  any  criminal  law  for?  Do  we  send  a  thief  to  jail  in 
order  to  make  a  moral  man  of  him  ?  Do  we  hang  a  murderer 
in  order  to  make  a  moral  man  of  him?  Do  we  imprison  a 
forger  in  order  to  make  him  good?  No,  criminal  law  is  not 
enacted  to  make  men  moral,  but  to  protect  the  community 
against  wrongdoing.  The  saloon  breeds  crime  against  the 
person,  against  public  order,  against  life  itself.  Two-thirds 
of  the  arrests  made  are  for  drunkenness — either  "plain 
drunks"  or  "drunks  and  disorderlies,"  every  one  of  which 
signifies  at  the  very  least  a  public  nuisance,  and  in  very  many 
cases  a  menace  to  life.  The  community  has  a  right — it  has 
a  positive  duty — to  protect  itself  from  these  forms  of  wrong- 
doing. The  purpose  of  prohibitory  law  is  not  to  make  the 
drunkard  moral  and  the  saloon  keeper  virtuous,  but  to  pro- 
tect the  public  against  wrongdoing.  We  ought  to  stop  making 
men  immoral  by  law.  Men  may  get  liquor  if  they  hunt  it, 
but  we  ought  to  stop  the  saloon  from  hunting  men.  We  want 
a  law  that  will  shield  and  protect  the  young,  the  habit-bound 
and  the  helpless,  and  not  become  a  snare  to  entrap  the  unwary. 


[299] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"BECAUSE  ONE  MAN  OUT  OF  TEN  MAKES  A  FOOL 

OF  HIMSELF  IS  NO  REASON  WHY  THE  OTHER 

NINE  SHOULD  BE  DEPRIVED  OF  THE 

PLEASURE  OF  DRINK!" 

YES,  but  it  does  not  stop  with  one  man's  making  a  fool 
of  himself.  The  trouble  is  that  he  makes,  too  often, 
a  wild  beast  of  himself.  The  trouble  is  that  in  that 
condition  he  is  liable  to  make  a  corpse  of  somebody  else.  If 
one  man  out  of  ten,  or  one  out  of  fifty,  turned  out  by  a 
saloon  is  for  the  time  being  a  maniac,  it  is  about  time  to  shut 
up  the  saloon  and  let  the  other  forty-nine  men  gratify  their 
appetites  in  a  less  hazardous  way.  If  one  coat  out  of  every 
ten  made  from  South  American  wool  were  found  to  engender 
insanity  in  the  wearer,  would  the  public  do  right  to  pass  a 
law,  if  necessary,  preventing  the  manufacture  or  sale  of  such 
coats  ? 

If  one  man  out  of  every  ten  that  ate  ice  cream  was  found 
to  be  afflicted  with  an  incurable  disease  that  made  him  a  dan- 
ger to  passersby,  how  long  before  the  law  would  throttle  the 
ice  cream  factory?  If  liquor  were  an  entirely  new  thing,  just 
introduced  into  the  country,  and  the  effects  were  at  once  ascer- 
tained to  be  what  they  are  shown  to  be,  a  prohibitory  law 
would  be  passed  by  acclamation.  If  a  business  makes  one 
man  out  of  ten  a  wild  beast,  or  even  a  common  nuisance,  the 
other  nine  have  no  right  to  ask  that  the  business  continue 
in  order  to  gratify  their  appetites  at  the  expense  of  public 
order  and  personal  safety. 

There  is  no  law  against  drunkenness,  and  as  there  is  no 
penalty  no  man  is  afraid  to  get  drunk.  This  would  be  a 
proper  policy  if  individuals  all  lived  apart,  but  every  man  is 
a  part  of  the  social  compact,  and  where  we  allow  him  to  put 
himself  in  an  irresponsible  condition,  to  disturb  the  public 
peace  and  menace  the  public  safety,  we  blunder.     If  one  is 

[301] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

going  to  live  in  society  his  standards  of  liberty  must  be  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  some  one  who  lives  a  Robinson  Crusoe 
life  alone.  If  he  goes  to  a  desert,  mountain  or  island,  he  can 
plant  an  orchard,  make  apple  brandy  and  drink  himself  full, 
where  the  wolves  will  get  his  body  and  the  devil  will  take 
his  soul,  he  is  within  his  legal  rights,  but  if  he  is  going  to 
live  in  society,  there  can  be  no  true  liberty  but  in  steadfast 
obedience  to  righteous  law.  They  talk  about  "blue  laws". 
Why,  all  laws  look  blue  to  one  who  does  not  intend  to  obey 
them.  "No  rogue  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw  with  good  opinion 
of  the  law." 


[302] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"IT  IS  CONTRARY  TO  THE  SPIRIT  OF  AMERICAN 

LIBERTY  TO  DICTATE,  BY  LAW,  WHAT  A 

MAN  SHALL  EAT  OR  DRINK." 

THIS  is  the  "personal  liberty"  argument.  It  is  based 
on  a  double  misconception:  (first)  As  to  the  nature 
of  personal  rights,  and  (second)  as  to  the  purpose  of 
prohibition.  Personal  rights  are,  properly,  rights  that  per- 
tain to  one's  own  person.  Nature  assigns  to  me  the  right  to 
control  my  own  muscles,  nerves,  appetites  and  passions.  The 
will  to  govern  my  passions  is  lodged  in  my  head  and  not  in 
any  other  man's  head.  If  I  misgovern  I  am  the  one  that 
suffers  most.  I  have  a  natural  right  to  control  my  own  per- 
son. But  if  that  is  my  personal  right,  what  is  yours?  Pre- 
cisely the  same.  You  have  the  right  (as  it  is  your  duty)  to 
rule  supreme  in  the  realm  of  your  own  person.  No  one  else 
can  do  it  for  you.  But  when  I  use  my  power  over  my  muscles 
to  constrain  or  injure  you,  then  I  am  beyond  my  realm  and 
am  usurping  authority  in  your  realm.  My  right  is  supreme 
so  long  as  I  alone  am  affected.  When  some  one  else  is  affected 
my  right  stops.  I  can  eat  whenever  I  please  and  yet  I  cannot 
eat  my  neighbor's  bread.  I  can  drink  what  I  like,  but  not  my 
neighbor's  wine.  I  have  a  right  to  stand  and  swing  my  fist, 
but  that  right  ends  just  where  your  nose  begins. 

The  right  of  barter  and  sale  is  not  a  personal  right  at  all. 
I  cannot  barter  with  myself.  "It  takes  two  to  make  a  bar- 
gain." There  must  be  some  form  of  social  organization  in 
order  for  the  existence  of  trade  or  traffic.  The  savage  is  in 
a  "state  of  nature"  and  has  an  appetite  for  meat.  But  when 
he  begins  to  trade  with  other  savages,  then  and  there  is  the 
germ  of  social  organization.  All  traffic  depends  at  every  step 
upon  the  protection  of  civil  laws,  statute  or  common. 

The  right  to  eat  or  drink  what  I  please  (if  I  do  not  infringe 
my  neighbor's  equal  right)  is  a  personal  right.  But  the  right 
to  control  a  public  traffic  is  a  social  or  civil  right.     To  drink 

[303] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

a  glass  of  wine,  if  it  is  mine,  may  be  a  personal  right.  That 
is  to  say,  it  is  an  act  of  personal  liberty,  even  though  it  may 
be  an  unwise  exercise  of  that  liberty.  But  the  right  to  keep 
a  saloon,  or  to  manufacture  liquor  for  sale,  is  not  a  personal 
right  at  all.  If  a  right  at  all,  it  is  a  social  or  civil  right,  con- 
ferred and  protected  by  law.  I  may  drink  a  glass  of  wine  or 
beer  and  no  one  else  be  afifected  by  it.  But  I  cannot  conduct 
a  saloon  without  any  one  else  being  afifected  by  that. 

Prohibition  deals  with  the  traffic  in  liquor.  It  says  that  one 
shall  not  sell,  or  make  for  sale,  not  that  one  shall  not  make 
for  himself  and  use  it  for  himself.  Under  prohibition  law 
any  one  has  the  right  to  set  up  a  little  kitchen  distillery  and 
make  his  own  whisky  as  he  bakes  his  own  bread.  The  per- 
sonal right  is  undisputed.  The  right  of  traffic  alone  is  inter- 
fered with.  If  it  were  the  business  of  the  Government  to  pre- 
vent a  man's  injuring  himself,  then  it  might  prevent  a  man 
from  even  drinking  liquor.  But  that  is  not  the  business  of 
government.  Its  business  is  to  keep  each  man  from  injuring 
others.  Its  province  may  be  larger  than  that,  but  it  certainly 
is  that  large. 

The  whole  argument  for  prohibition  rests,  therefore,  on 
this  basis :  That  the  liquor  traffic  is  a  public  menace,  a  public 
nuisance,  a  public  curse.  It  forbids,  therefore,  the  public  act 
of  traffic,  not  dealing  with  private  appetites  and  personal 
habits.  The  opening  of  saloons  is  a  public  act  which  affects 
everybody  and  the  right  only  comes  by  the  consent  of  the 
majority. 

I  am  in  favor  of  liberty  enlightening  the  world,  but  that 
doesn't  imply  a  liking  for  a  goddess  with  a  red  nose  to  illu- 
minate the  path  of  progress. 


[304] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"IT  IS  A  BAD  THING  TO  HAVE  LAWS  THAT  ARE 
NOT  ENFORCED." 

YES,  but  a  worse  thing  to  have  laws  which  decent  people 
cannot  respect.  Laws  which,  instead  of  reflecting  the 
sentiments  of  the  best  classes,  only  mark  the  level  of 
morality  among  the  lowest  and  vilest.  Shall  we  go  around 
among  horse  thieves,  train  robbers,  safe  breakers,  and  thugs, 
and  ask  them  what  kind  of  laws  they  are  willing  to  obey? 
Shall  we  put  on  our  statute  books  only  the  laws  that  can  be 
enforced  without  difficulty?  And  if  we  find  something  par- 
ticularly favored  by  these  classes,  something  which  will  make 
a  great  deal  of  trouble  if  we  attempt  to  enforce  it,  shall  we 
legalize  the  thing  and  encourage  it,  no  matter  how  much  mis- 
chief it  will  work  among  men?  If  not,  we  ought  not  to  do 
so  with  reference  to  the  sale  of  liquor.  Liquor  selling  is 
more  dangerous  to  society  than  gambling,  more  dangerous 
than  making  counterfeit  money,  more  dangerous  than  any  one 
thing  now  placed  under  the  ban  of  the  law.  Why  not  be  con- 
sistent and  treat  liquor  selling  as  we  treat  other  dangerous 
things  ? 

But  the  temperance  reform  is  the  only  one  which  is  re- 
versed when  it  proves  its  case.  We  start  out  with  charging 
the  brewer  and  saloon  keeper  with  anarchy,  saying  they  vio- 
late every  restrictive  law  on  the  statute  books.  When  we  vote 
them  out  and  they  come  back  and  violate  the  prohibitory  law, 
instead  of  rebuking  them  or  the  perjured  scoundrel  who  is 
under  oath  and  salary  to  enforce  the  law,  you  go  back  on  us 
and  vote  the  law  breakers  a  new  lease  of  life.  Whenever  you 
have  blind  pigs  you  have  blind  officers,  and  when  you  have  a 
blind  officer  he  is  taking  something  to  keep  his  eyes  closed. 
Why,  a  puppy  gets  his  eyes  open  in  nine  days ;  we  might  get 
our  officers'  eyes  open  sooner  if  we  would  go  to  electing  pups. 
I  don't  mean  any  reflection  on  any  respectable  dog,  remember. 

[305] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

I  only  mean:    If  you  want  to  get  rid  of  blind  tigers  you  must 
elect  officers  who  have  eyes. 

But,  in  passing,  let  me  inquire  why  we  have  named  them 
"blind  pigs"  and  "blind  tigers"  ?  I  never  saw  the  significance. 
If  we  must  name  an  illicit  rumshop  for  any  animal,  I  propose 
we  call  it  a  skunk;  that  is  the  beast  that  dispenses  strong 
liquor  without  a  license ! 


[306] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"PROHIBITION  DON'T  PROHIBIT." 

THE  logic  of  this  objection  is  as  bad  as  the  grammar! 
If  ••ohiuilion  doesn't  prohibit,  what  will?  If  it  doesn't 
piohibit,  it  isn't  Prohibition.  If  it  is  Prohibition,  it  does 
prohibit.  We  have  tried  moderation,  but  the  appetite  in- 
creased. We  have  tried  total  abstinence,  but  it  manaf-;ed  the 
private  appetite  and  let  the  public  traffic  go  unrestricted.  We 
ha\e  tried  licf^nse,  but  license  is  permission,  not  prohibition. 
We  raise''  the  p;  i  •,  and  high  license  intrenched  the  traffic.  We 
tried  restrictior  but  the  legalized  outlaw  was  stronger  than 
anv  re.s:rii.Li\e  measures.  It  is  easier  to  kill  it  th,in  to  con- 
fine it.  There  is  only  one  mode  of  dealing  with  intrinsic 
evils — with  that  which  is  evil  in  all  it?  results — th€  divine 
method  must  become  the  human  meihod.  Prohibition.  This 
has  been  tried  with  dueling,  slavery,  polygamy,  cannabalism, 
lotteries,  gambling,  bull  fighting,  prize  fighting;  it  will  work 
as  well  on  rum  selling.  It  does  it  now.  All  the  States  have 
tried  it  \\  ith  'success  once  a  year — on  election  cViy.  Most  of 
them  run  Prohibiiion  quite  successfully  once  a  weel-  -on  Sun- 
day. If  Prohibiiion  can  be  made  to  prohibit  one  day  a  year 
and  as  easily  one  day  each  week,  the  same  legal  system  and 
the  9i}WG  legal  officers  could  make  it  prohibit  on  evejy  other 
dav. 


[307] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"THE  BREWERS  HAVE  AGREED  TO  REFORM!" 

THE  citizens  of  Oregon  were  promised  a  few  months 
ago  one  of  the  most  noted  spectacles  ever  seen  in  the 
world.  Curiosity  and  hope  became  rife.  Barnum  & 
Bailey's  circus  never  produced  such  high  expectance  as  when 
it  was  announced  that  the  Brewers'  Association  was  to  intro- 
duce certain  reforms  in  the  liquor  trade.  No  more  saloons 
were  going  to  be  thrust  into  residence  sections.  Wom.en  were 
not  to  be  permitted  to  frequent  any  of  them.  Observance  of 
the  Sunday  law  was  to  be  strict.  They  were  to  close  promptly 
within  legal  hours.  But  this  was  all  just  before  election. 
When  the  election  was  over,  all  these  pre-election  promises, 
like  some  New  Year's  resolutions,  folded  their  tents  like  the 
Arabs  and  silently  stole  away. 

Once  the  great  American  showman  remarked,  "The  Amer- 
ican people  like  to  be  humbugged."  To  illustrate  how  easily 
the  thing  is  done,  he  secured  the  bust  of  a  young  lady  from 
the  morgue  and  the  tail  of  a  codfish  in  Massachusetts  Bay, 
properly  adjusted  them,  and  exhibited  the  combination  at 
twenty-five  cents  a  head  as  the  one  genuine  mermaid  of  the 
whole  world.  Preserved  in  alcohol  for  many  years,  he  made 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  on  it.  When  constant  jolting 
finally  separated  the  two  bodies,  he  put  the  price  up  to  fifty 
cents  per  head  and  showed  the  thing  that  had  fooled  so  many 
people,  making  more  money  than  he  did  before. 

The  ease  with  which  our  liquor  friends  fool  many  good 
citizens  by  their  pre-election  promises  somehow  reminds  me 
of  this  experience  of  Barnum's,  and  of  another  philosopher's 
comment  on  human  nature,  "There  is  a  new  sucker  born  every 
minute." 

The  liquor  trade  will  never  be  reformed  so  long  as  alcohol 
dwells  in  whisky.  It  is  not  the  reputation  of  the  man  behind 
the  bar,  nor  the  color  of  the  saloon,  whether  it  is  gilded  or 
whitewashed ;  not  the  amount  paid  for  license ;  not  the  resolu- 

[309] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

tions  of  the  Liquor  League,  that  decides  the  character  of  the 
saloon.  It  is  the  nature  of  the  beverage  it  deals  over  the  bar 
that  goes  to  a  man's  head  and  dethrones  his  reason,  saps  the 
integrity  from  his  conscience  and  strength  from  his  character 
— leaves  him  an  unbridled  beast,  and  leaves  us  to  take  the 
consequences  and  pay  the  damages.  The  only  way  to  reform 
the  trade  is  to  turn  every  saloon  into  a  store,  every  groggery 
into  a  grocery,  every  drinkshop  into  a  dry  goods  establish- 
ment, every  winery  into  a  wagon  shop,  every  dive  into  a  drug 
store,  every  brewery  into  a  manufacturing  plant,  and  make 
mills  out  of  stills. 


[310] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"A  HALF  LOAF  IS  BETTER  THAN  NO  BREAD!" 

THAT  all  depends  on  whether  the  half  loaf  is  poisoned. 
It  is  better  to  work  for  a  whole  loaf  and  miss  getting  it, 
through  no  fault  of  ours,  than  compromise  on  a  half 
loaf  that  has  been  poisoned,  and  stain  our  hands  with  the 
blood  of  our  children  and  our  neighbors'  children,  who  drink 
their  degradation  and  their  death  in  the  saloons  our  license 
has  intrenched.  It  is  better  to  vote  for  what  you  want  and 
not  get  it  than  to  vote  for  what  you  don't  want  and  get  it. 

"You  can't  get  prohibition  now;  why  not  work  for  some- 
thing you  can  get?" 

Meaning  what?  A  reduction  in  the  number  of  saloons, 
probably.  It  is  such  an  easy  problem  in  mathematics  to  say 
that  to  reduce  the  saloons  from  two  hundred  to  one  hundred 
will  reduce  the  evils  one-half.  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  true. 
Experience  shows  that  the  reverse  is  true,  and  that  a  mere 
reduction  in  the  number  of  saloons,  those  that  are  left  being 
free  to  do  business  as  before,  is  followed  invariably  by  an 
increase  in  the  evils.  It  seems  like  a  provokingly  unreasonable 
fact  at  first,  but  on  examination  it  is,  after  all,  easily  explained. 

Where  the  patrons  of  two  saloons  are  thrown  together  into 
one  saloon  the  treating  and  drinking  increases.  Let  two  men 
sit  down  to  drink  and  each  treat  the  other,  making  two  rounds 
of  drinks.  Now  come  in  two  others,  acquaintances,  and  noth- 
ing will  do  but  there  shall  be  two  more  rounds  of  drinks. 
What  is  more,  each  saloon,  having  now  nearly  or  quite  twice 
as  many  patrons  as  before  (when  there  were  twice  as  many 
saloons)  can  present  twice  as  costly  attractions  to  lure  their 
customers.  There  is  no  case  on  record,  so  far  as  we  know, 
where  the  mere  reduction  in  the  number  of  saloons  has — 
unless  for  a  very  brief  period — reduced  the  evils  of  drink. 
Where,  then,  is  the  half  loaf  of  bread? 

The  saloons  that  are  left  do  about  twice  as  much  business 
at  far  less  expense  than  before,  when  the  saloons  were  twice 

[311] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

as  many.  When  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company 
bought  out  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Telegraph  Company,  where 
there  had  been  before  two  telegraph  offices,  with  two  rents  to 
pay,  and  two  forces  of  clerks,  there  soon  came  to  be  but  one 
doing  the  business  of  the  two  at  far  less  expense  than  it  was 
done  before.  That  didn't  hurt  the  telegraph  business  any, 
did  it? 


312] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"BUT  WHY  NOT  WORK  FOR  THE  ENFORCEMENT 
OF  THE  RESTRICTIVE  LAWS  ALREADY  EN- 
ACTED? THAT  WOULD  BE  A  HALF 
LOAF  WORTH  GETTING." 

THAT  also  looks  reasonable  until  you  come  to  try  it.  We 
Prohibitionists  have  among  ourselves,  however,  a  sort 
of  axiom  to  the  effect  that  the  very  surest  way  known 
to  make  a  man  a  Prohibitionist  is  to  start  him  in  the  attempt 
to  secure  the  enforcement  of  the  restrictive  laws  we  have. 
That  is  the  precise  way  most  of  us  got  where  we  are.  Why 
is  this  ?    There  are  two  reasons  for  it : 

First.  If  a  saloon  is  allowed  to  run  at  all,  it  must  be  con- 
tinually watched  to  see  that  it  observes  the  restrictive  laws ; 
and 

Second.  The  laws  can  be  enforced  only  through  the  public 
officials.  If  they  don't  of  their  own  will  enforce  the  laws, 
you  may  depend  upon  it  there  is  some  reason  for  their  action. 
This  reason  is  a  political  one  generally. 

Now,  when  you  start  in  to  enforce  the  laws,  you  must,  at 
every  step,  work  through  these  officials.  You  soon  conclude 
that  you  need  new  officials.  If  your  pluck  is  good,  you  per- 
sist, but  find  the  law  was  made  in  favor  of  the  liquor  trust. 
You  have  no  advantage ;  they  have  all.  The  liquor  men,  so 
long  as  they  stay  in  the  traffic,  will  violate  any  restriction  you 
place  upon  them,  and  having  the  inside  track,  and  the  means, 
they  will  beat  you  at  law.  The  best  way  to  reform  a  saloon 
is  to  close  it  up  and  then  start  some  other  business  there. 
Do  not  these  saloons  all  violate  the  present  restrictions? 
Would  not  the  new  law  do  better  than  the  present  one?  It 
could  not  be  worse.  Why  don't  you  get  to  work  at  this  saloon 
improvement  ?  We  can't  improve  the  trade ;  we  are  not  in  the 
liquor  business.  Crime  should  be  prohibited ;  wrong  cannot 
be   right. 

[313] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"BUT   OF  TWO   EVILS   YOU   MUST   CHOOSE   THE 

LEAST !" 

OF  TWO  evils  there  is  no  choice  for  me.  You  can  go 
into  a  reireshment  store  and  call  for  an  c;;'^  in  your 
soda.  The  clerk  informs  you  that  he  has  but  two 
eggs  left.  "One  is  rotten,  the  other  spoiled.  Which  will  you 
choose?"  You  would  say,  "1  will  take  the  spoiled  one."  But 
I  should  say,  "I  will  wait  HU  the  hens  lay."  Of  those  easy 
folks  thai,  in  every  contest  for  better  things,,  allow  the  enemy 
to  fix  up  a  concoction  for  them  as  a  substitute  for  prohibition, 
I  have  no  uncharitable  remarks.  A  great  deal  depends  upon 
the  taste !  As  between  low  license  and  high  license  there  is 
no  choice  for  us.  For  our  license  system  is  not  a  restriction 
or  a  prohibition,  but  a  legal  permission  to  do  a  wrong  act, 
detrimental  to  the  public  good,  for  a  price.  The  archway  of 
triumph  through  which  the  trade  expects  to  march  triumph- 
antly into  the  future  is  supported  by  two  pillars.  Respect- 
ability, to  entrap  the  youth,  and  Revenue,  to  bribe  the  voter, 
both  erected  by  our  infamous  license  system,  the  sale  of  Souls 
for  Revenue. 


[315] 


Speeches  of  Tpie  Flying  Squadron 

"BUT  IF  THE  BIBLE  FAVORS  PROHIBITION  WHY 
DOESN'T  IT  SAY  SO  IN   PLAIN  WORDS?" 

MY  BIBLE  does.  It  points  to  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil  and  says :  "Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it, 
for  in  the  day  thou  eatest  of  it,  thou  shalt  surely  die." 
It  contains  ten  commandments,  every  one  of  which  is  prohib- 
itory. The  mind  that  conceived  them  was  that  of  a  Pro- 
hibitionist. 

"Thou  shalt  not"  is  even  sumptuary  legislation.  The  Jew- 
ish people  were  raised  on  tliese  doctrines,  and  to  this  day 
they  recognize  the  right  of  the  law-giver  to  forbid  the  use  of 
certain  meats.  The  hog  and  certain  other  animals  are  pre- 
scribed as  unclean.  There  are  deeds,  words,  and  even  thoughts 
which  are  prohibited. 

But  when  you  come  to  the  New  Testament  this  principle 
fairly  blazes  forth.  John  stands  at  the  threshold  of  the  new 
era,  declaring,  "And  even  now  the  ax  also  is  laid  at  the  root 
of  the  trees ;  every  tree,  therefore,  that  bringeth  not  forth 
good  fruit  is  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire."  Our  Lord 
decreed :  "Every  plant  that  my  heavenly  Father  has  not  planted 
shall  be  rooted  up,"  and  "by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 
This  refers  to  saloon  plants  and  brewery  plants  and  dis- 
tillery plants,  and  every  other  plant  that  produces  bad  fruit. 
If  hewing  it  down,  rooting  it  up  and  burning  it  in  the  fire 
isn't  Prohibition,  what  is? 


[317] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 
"THIS  IS  NOT  A  NATIONAL  ISSUE." 

UNDER  the  American  scheme  of  government  there  are 
state  questions  and  there  are  national  questions.  For 
instance,  the  question  of  woman  suffrage  is  at  least 
technically  a  state  question,  simply  because  the  State  can  exer- 
cise complete  and  controlling  authority  in  regard  to  this  issue. 
If  Illinois  wishes  to  enfranchise  its  women,  can  it  do  so? 
Certainly.  Is  this  enfranchisement  either  blocked  or  limited 
by  the  Federal  Constitution  or  by  any  powers  given  to  the 
Federal  Government  by  the  Constitution?  No.  The  women 
of  Illinois  can  vote  for  every  office  from  dog  catcher  to  Presi- 
dent, if  Illinois  says  they  may.  If  the  Federal  Congress 
should  attempt  to  say  that  Illinois  women  shall  not  vote  or 
shall  exercise  their  franchise  for  certain  offices  only — if,  for 
instance,  Congress  should  say  that  Illinois  women  shall  not 
vote  for  President — such  a  Congressional  law  would  not  be 
worth  the  paper  on  which  it  was  written,  for  suffrage  is  a 
matter  belonging  to  the  States  and  not  to  the  Nation,  except- 
ing as  constitutional  amendment  may  alter  the  location  of 
this  power. 

But  can  any  State  exercise  such  complete  and  controlling 
influence  over  the  liquor  traffic?  No.  The  State  controls 
state  license  and  but  little  else.  The  Federal  Government  con- 
trols Federal  license,  interstate  commerce,  navigable  waters, 
the  mails  which  carry  advertisements,  treaties,  imports  and 
exports,  the  testimony  of  Federal  revenue  officers,  all  terri- 
tory belonging  to  the  Federal  Government,  even  within  the 
botmds  of  a  State.  The  liquor  problem  is  a  Federal  question 
because  the  Federal  Government  only  can  exercise  a  direct 
and  conclusive  control  over  this  question. 


[319] 


CHARLES  SCANLON 


CHARLES  SCANLON,  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  is  the  Gen- 
eral Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Temperance  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church.  He  was  born  at  Three 
Churches,  Hampshire  County,  West  Virginia,  October  5, 
1869,  of  the  marriage  of  Michael  Scanlon  and  Mary  E. 
Garrett. 

From  the  public  schools  he  entered  Valparaiso  Univer- 
sity, at  Valparaiso,  Indiana,  receiving  the  degree  of  B.  S. 
in  1895  and  the  degree  of  A.  M.  in  1899,  taking  a  -post- 
graduate course  in  the  University  of  Minnesota  in  1901. 

Dr.  Scanlon  was  married  to  Mary  A.  E.  Walker,  of 
Browningsville,  Md.,  April  2,  1894. 

After  teaching  in  the  public  schools  of  West  Virginia, 
he  became  a  teacher  in  the  State  Normal  School  of  Vir- 
ginia, remaining  there  four  years  (1890-94),  and  retiring 
to  accept  the  pastorate  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  at 
Wheaton,  Minn.,  in  1895.  In  1899  he  was  transferred  to 
Minneapolis,  continuing  in  a  pastorate  there  until  1903. 
From  1899  to  1901  he  held  a  chair  in  McAllister  College, 
St.  Paul.  Upon  his  retirement  from  the  ministry  in  1903 
he  became  national  lecturer  for  the  Prohibition  party. 

In  1902  he  was  nominated  for  Governor  of  Minnesota  on 
the  Prohibition  ticket.  In  1908  he  was  elected  Permanent 
Chairman  of  the  National  Prohibition  Convention.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  twelfth  International  Congress  against 
Alcoholism,  which  convened  in  London  in  1909 ;  also  of  the 
thirteenth  convention  of  the  same  Congress  held  at  The 
Hague  in  1911,  and  of  its  fourteenth  convention  held  at 
Milan,  Italy,  in  1913,  representing  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  in  each  of  these  conferences. 

At  the  present  writing  Dr.  Scanlon  is  Secretary  of  the 
Temperance  Commission  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the 
Churches  of  Christ  in  America,  Treasurer  of  the  Interna- 
tional Prohibition  Confederation,  member  of  the  National 
Temperance  Society,  member  of  the  National  Prohibition 

[323] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Trust  Fund  and  of  the  Scientific  Temperance  Federation. 
His  home  is  at  401  South  Rebecca  street,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
His  office  is  in  the  First  National  Bank  building. 

Dr.  Scanlon  joined  the  Flying  Squadron  at  Wichita,  Kan- 
sas, and  continued  with  it  throughout  the  Pacific  Coast 
campaign,  and  until  it  reached  St.  Paul  on  its  return  trip. 
He  came  to  take  the  place  of  Eugene  W.  Chafin,  who  was 
unable  to  join  the  Squadron  at  the  beginning  of  its  cam- 
paign because  of  his  candidacy  for  United  States  senator. 

Few,  if  any,  hold  a  higher  place  among  the  temperance 
millions  in  America  than  Dr.  Scanlon.  His  contribution  to 
the  campaign  of  the  Squadron  had  a  distinct  and  peculiar 
value.  The  message  he  gives  in  this  volume  speaks  for 
itself. 


:324] 


LIQUOR  VERSUS  BUSINESS. 

THE  liquor  traffic  has  long  since  lost  all  claim  to  right 
of  existence  either  on  moral  or  on  social  grounds. 
Almost  its  sole  plea  for  toleration  today  is  that  it 
helps  business.  The  purpose  of  this  address  is  to  deal  with 
that  phase  of  the  question,  omitting  entirely  for  the  time 
other  phases. 

The  four  great  staple  products  of  our  lives  are  food, 
clothing,  shelter  and  tools  with  which  to  work.  Business 
is  always  helped  when  the  demand  for  these  commodities 
is  increased,  when  the  cost  and  the  difficulty  of  production 
is  diminished  and  when  the  purchasing  power  of  the  people 
is  enlarged.  Business  is  always  injured  when  the  demand 
for  these  staples  is  decreased,  when  the  cost  and  difficulty 
of  production  is  increased,  and  when  the  purchasing  power 
of  the  people  is  diminished.  In  the  Hght  of  these  few  sim- 
ply accepted  principles  of  political  economy  let  us  examine 
the  liquor  traffic. 

What  is  the  effect  of  the  Hquor  traffic  upon  the  demand 
for  food?  Other  things  being  equal,  do  the  families  of 
drunkards  have  more  food  and  better  food  than  the  fam- 
ilies of  sober  men?  No;  the  contrary  is  true.  Therefore, 
the  liquor  traffic  is  the  enemy  of  the  grain  grower,  the 
miller,  the  flour  merchant,  the  stock  raiser,  the  butcher, 
the  baker,  the  grocer,  the  fruit  grower,  the  fruit  dealer 
and  of  every  man  who  produces  or  handles  any  article  of 
food,  because  it  lessens  the  demand  for  what  that  man  has 
to  supply. 

What  is  the  effect  of  the  liquor  traffic  upon  the  demand 
for  clothing?  Other  things  being  equal,  do  the  families  of 
drunkards  have  more  clothing  and  better  clothing  than  the 
families  of  sober  men?  Not  at  all.  Then  the  liquor  traffic 
is  the  enemy  of  the  cotton  grower,  the  wool  producer,  the 
manufacturer  of  fabrics,  the  dry  goods  merchant,  the  clothier, 

[325] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  tailor,  the  hatter,  the  shoe  maker,  the  shoe  dealer  and  of 
every  man  who  handles  or  produces  any  article  of  clothing,  be- 
cause it  lessens  the  demand  for  what  that  man  has  to 
supply. 

How  does  the  liquor  traffic  affect  the  demand  for 
houses?  When  young  people  are  married  and  establish  a 
home,  and  build  a  house,  they  give  business  to  teamsters 
and  hod-carriers  and  stone-masons  and  brick-layers  and 
carpenters  and  plasterers  and  furniture  dealers  and  hard- 
ware merchants  and  glaziers  and  shingle  makers  and  up- 
holsterers and  carpet  weavers  and  men  in  other  lines  of 
trade  and  industry.  Suppose  the  young  man  is  a  drinking 
man.  He  will  commonly  go  from  a  poor  house  to  a  poorer 
one,  and  finally  it  may  be  to  the  poor  house  itself,  where 
those  who  are  dependent  upon  him  are  supported  at  public 
expense.  Now  he  has  paid  no  wages  to  others,  but  has 
taken  the  wages  of  others  to  care  for  those  whom  he  had 
the  right  to  support. 

What  is  the  effect  of  the  liquor  traffic  upon  the  demand 
for  tools?  By  this  we  mean  anything  used  in  the  produc- 
tion of  a  Hvelihood.  The  stock  and  the  implements  of  the 
farmer,  the  library  of  the  professional  man,  and  the  uten- 
sils of  the  household  are  all  included  under  this  head. 

Other  things  being  equal,  do  drunken  farmers  have  more 
and  better  stock,  more  and  better  machinery  than  sober 
farmers?  Not  at  all.  Then  the  liquor  traffic  is  the  enemy 
of  the  horse  market,  cattle  market,  sheep  market,  hog  mar- 
ket, poultry  market ;  it  is  the  enemy  of  the  manufacturers 
of  plows  and  seeders  and  wagons  and  rakes  and  mowers 
and  reapers  and  harness  and  of  the  dealers  in  agricultural 
implements,  because  it  lessens  the  demand  for  all  such 
things. 

How  does  it  affect  the  demand  for  books?  Other  things 
being  equal,  do  drunken  professional  men  have  larger  and 
better  libraries  than  sober  men  in  the  same  lines?     Not  at 

[326] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

all.  Then  the  liquor  traffic  is  the  enemy  of  the  paper  man- 
ufacturer, the  printer,  the  book  binder,  the  book  seller  and 
of  every  man  whose  capital,  or  labor,  or  genius  enters  into 
the  use  of  the  production  of  a  book  or  a  paper  or  a  maga- 
zine, because  it  lessens  the  demand  for  all  these  things. 

Do  the  wives  of  drunkards,  other  things  being  equal, 
have  'more  and  better  utensils  with  which  to  conduct  the 
duties  of  the  home  than  the  wives  of  other  men?  By  no 
means.  There  is  no  wiser  or  higher  economy  anywhere 
than  the  preservation  of  the  health  and  the  strength  of 
the  wife  and  the  mother.  There  can  be  no  greater  extrava- 
gance than  the  needless  expenditure  of  the  strength  of  the 
wife  and  the  mother.  The  measure  of  Christian  civilization 
must  always  be  the  measure  of  love  and  confidence  and 
respect  shown  to  womanhood.  We  can  no  more  elevate  a 
nation  while  degrading  its  womanhood  than  we  can 
strengthen  a  rope  by  weakening  its  strands,  or  enrich  a 
nation  by  impoverishing  its  people. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  always  and  everywhere  the  enemy 
of  womanhood.  It  degrades  her  physically,  morally, 
socially,  intellectually  and  spiritually.  Every  day  a  multi- 
tude of  men  are  spending  for  liquor  that  which  would 
otherwise  be  spent  in  the  home,  and  when  so  spent  would 
preserve  the  health  and  strength  of  the  wife  and  the 
mother. 

Here,  then,  is  a  traffic  which  lessens  the  demand  for  food, 
for  clothing,  for  houses,  for  tools  with  which  to  work.  A 
thing  which  does  that  must  always  be  an  enemy  of  busi- 
ness, for  wherever  there  is  suffering  in  America  today  it  is 
due  to  under-consumption  and  not  to  over-production.  As 
long  as  there  are  children  who  cry  for  bread,  there  is  not 
too  much  grain ;  as  long  as  there  are  those  who  are  clad 
in  rags,  there  is  not  too  much  clothing;  as  long  as  one  and 
two  and  three  and  even  four  families  live  in  one  small 
room,  as  they  frequently  do  in  the  larger  cities,  and  then 

[327] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

some  of  them  take  in  boarders,  there  are  not  too  many 
houses  in  this  country.  We  need  to  enable  our  people  to 
build  their  homes  and  live  comfortably  in  them,  and  it 
could  be  done  with  less  than  goes  into  the  liquor  traffic. 

If  it  be  asked  if  this  traffic  is  not  here  to  supply  a  de- 
mand, we  answer  that  primarily  it  is  here  to  create  a  harm- 
ful, unnatural  demand  that  it  may  supply  it. 

If,  as  we  have  shown,  the  liquor  traffic  lessens  the  de- 
mand for  the  great  staples  of  life,  how  does  it  affect  the 
cost  and  the  difficulty  of  production?  Ames  &  Company, 
the  shovel  manufacturers,  found  that  when  their  men  were 
abstainers  they  produced  fourteen  per  cent,  more  goods  than 
when  they  were  drinking. 

Mr.  Mosley,  an  Englishman  of  means  and  public  spirit, 
brought  to  America  a  commission  to  ascertain  the  reason 
for  the  larger  productive  power  of  the  average  American 
workman.  Going  to  different  parts  of  this  country  and 
making  their  investigations  independently  of  each  other, 
the  commission  gave  as  its  judgment  that  the  superior 
productive  power  of  the  American  workman  over  his  Brit- 
ish brother  was  due  to  his  greater  degree  of  sobriety. 

The  Vice-President  of  the  American  Sugar  Factory  at 
Rocky  Ford,  Col.,  told  me  that  when  saloons  were  there, 
Monday  was  often  a  day  to  be  dreaded.  The  men  came 
late,  they  were  unskillful,  they  spoiled  the  product,  they 
broke  the  machinery,  they  injured  themselves  and  others 
and  often  their  wages  were  attached.  After  the  saloons 
were  banished,  Monday  was  often  the  best  day  in  the  week. 
The  men  came  back  refreshed  after  the  rest  of  the  Sab- 
bath, and  except  in  case  of  an  accident  none  of  the  things 
before  complained  of  occurred.  It  was  a  rare  thing  that 
the  workmen's  wages  were  attached,  and  that  eighty  per 
cent,  of  the  business  men  of  Rocky  Ford  would  vote 
against  the  return  of  the  saloon,  for  they  sold  more  goods 
and  found  it  easier  to  collect  their  accounts. 

[328] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

At  Ida  Grove,  Iowa,  some  years  ago  a  bank  was  in  pro- 
cess of  erection  when  I  visited  the  town.  Everything 
seemed  in  readiness,  but  no  one  was  at  work.  Inquiring 
the  reason,  I  was  told  that  there  was  but  one  man  in  the 
place  who  was  sufficiently  skilled  to  turn  the  noble  arch 
over  the  main  doorway  and  that  he  had  gone  on  a  spree. 
The  other  workmen  were  therefore  necessarily  idle.  At 
the  end  of  the  week  or  month  when  they  were  paid,  did 
they  not  all  have  less  money  than  they  would  have  had  had 
the  work  gone  forward  in  a  normal  manner  on  that  build- 
ing? Did  not  the  contractor  make  less  money  than  he 
would  have  made  if  the  men  could  have  worked  regularly? 
Did  not  the  man  who  was  having  the  building  erected  lose 
money  by  delay  in  its  completion?  Did  not  the  merchants 
of  that  town  do  less  business  than  they  would  have  done 
if  all  the  men  had  remained  sober  and  employed? 

At  Taylorsville,  Florida,  I  was  told  by  a  man  who  had 
large  mercantile  and  turpentine  interests  that  he  had  just 
contributed  one  hundred  dollars  to  the  prohibition  ^cam- 
paign. Inquiring  his  reason  for  doing  so,  he  repHed,  "Keep 
liquor  away  and  I  can  manage  a  thousand  negroes  in  this 
camp,  but  put  Hquor  among  them  and  I  don't  guarantee  to 
manage  one  of  them,  nor  a  white  man  either." 

At  St.  Petersburg,  Florida,  as  the  throng  left  the  place 
of  meeting,  a  man  standing  near  the  doorway  said  as  I 
approached,  "Most  people  would  suppose  that  one  in  my 
line  of  business  would  favor  the  liquor  traffic,  but  I  don't." 
Inquiring  what  he  did,  he  said,  "I'm  an  undertaker.^^ 
"Well,"  I  said,  "why  do  you  not  favor  the  liquor  traffic?" 
He  said,  "Because  an  old  drunkard's  wife  dies,  and  I  bury 
her,  and  he  never  pays  me  for  the  coffin— or  he  dies,  and  I 
put'him  away,  and  I  never  get  anything  for  it.  I'm  against 
the  liquor  traffic." 

Out  from  Niagara  Falls,  in  the  apple  picking  season,  the 
farmers  told  me  that  they   favored  prohibition.     Asking 

[329] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

why,  they  repHed,  "We  cannot  gather  and  market  our  fruit 
with  drunken  help." 

It  is  slowly  but  surely  dawning  on  the  whole  world  that 
the  man  with  a  clear  eye  and  a  keen  ear  and  steady  nerves 
and  firm  muscles  and  an  unclouded  brain  is  a  better  work- 
man, a  better  citizen,  a  better  neighbor,  a  more  dependable 
piece  of  machinery  than  a  man  with  a  dim  eye,  a  dull  ear, 
unsteady  nerves  and  flabby  muscles  and  a  befogged  brain. 
In  other  words,  that  a  man  in  the  possession  of  all  his 
powers  is  a  larger  asset  of  the  Nation  than  a  man  shorn  of 
a  part  of  his  powers.  The  merchants  do  not  want  drinking 
men,  the  manufacturers  do  not  want  them,  the  life  insur- 
ance companies  do  not  want  them,  the  railroads  do  not 
want  them,  the  banks  do  not  want  them,  the  farmers  do 
not  want  them ;  in  fact,  there  is  nobody  who  does  want 
them,  unless  it  is  here  and  there  a  foolish  girl.  She  will 
sometimes  take  such,  but  that  is  about  all. 

I,  who  have  sisters  and  a  wife  and  children  of  my  own, 
say,  with  all  reverence,  I  would  to  God  that  the  young 
women  could  see  as  clearly  before  marriage  as  they  so 
soon  and  so  plainly  see  after  marriage,  the  folly  of  linking 
their  lives  with  drinking  men. 

If  the  liquor  traffic  lessens  the  demand  for  the  neces- 
sities of  life,  and  increases  the  cost  and  the  difficulty  of 
production,  how  does  it  aflfect  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
people  ? 

Under  normal  conditions,  a  man  cannot  buy  unless  he 
has  the  money,  and  he  cannot  have  the  money  unless  he 
works  for  it,  or  is  a  member  of  some  city  councils  better 
unnamed.  There  stands  a  factory  ready  for  operation,  the 
workmen  with  their  families  are  gathering.  A  grocer 
establishes  himself  nearby,  and  I  ask  where  he  expects  to 
get  a  living  for  his  family.  He  replies  he  expects  a  part 
of  the  wages  of  the  men  who  work  in  the  factory.  I  ask 
what  right  he  has  to  any  part  of  their  wages,  and  he  savs 

[330] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

that  unless  he  were  there,  or  some  one  to  take  his  place, 
those  men  would  have  to  go  singly  or  in  groups  to  get 
their  supplies,  but  by  bringing  the  supplies  to  a  convenient 
point  he  economizes  their  time  and  increases  their  pro- 
ductive power,  and  is  thus  entitled  to  a  portion  of  their 
earnings.  This  is  an  honorable  business  proposition  of 
advantage  to  all  concerned. 

There  stands  a  sawmill  owner,  and  I  ask  him  how  he 
expects  to  get  a  living.  He  replies  that  lumber  is  worth 
more  than  logs,  and  that  everything  which  comes  to  his 
hands  is  worth  more  when  he  is  done  with  it  than  when 
he  got  it,  that  he  is  creating  value  in  the  community,  and 
he  is. 

There  stands  a  carpenter,  and  I  ask  him  how  he  justifies 
his  trade.  He  replies  that  houses  are  worth  more  than 
lumber  in  the  pile,  and  that  everything  which  comes  to  his 
hands  is  also  worth  more  when  he  is  done  with  it  than 
when  he  got  it.  He,  too,  is  creating  value  in  the  com- 
munity. 

The  miller  tells  me  that  flour  is  worth  more  than  wheat 
in  the  kernel,  the  baker  says  bread  is  worth  more  than 
flour  in  the  barrel,  the  butcher  says  dressed  beef  is  worth 
more  than  cattle  on  the  hoof,  the  dairyman  says  that  but- 
ter is  worth  more  than  cream,  the  blacksmith  says  that 
iron  fashioned  into  useful  instruments  is  worth  more  than 
ore  in  the  hills,  the  tailor  says  clothes  are  worth  more  than 
goods  in  the  bolt,  the  shoemaker  says  shoes  are  worth 
more  than  leather  in  the  roll — they  are  all  creating  value. 

I  go  to  the  milliner  and  ask  her  what  she  is  doing.  She 
replies  that  she  is  taking  a  little  ribbon  and  feathers  and 
felt  and  converting  it  into  something  the  like  of  which  is 
not  seen  in  the  heavens  above,  nor  in  the  earth  beneath, 
nor  in  the  waters  under  the  earth,  and  if  you  men  don't 
believe  that  she  is  creating  value,  wait  until  you  get  a  bill 
for  that  hat. 

[331] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

There  is  no  yoke  under  which  the  average  American 
husband  and  father  bows  so  joyfully  as  that  which  is 
formed  by  the  arms  of  his  wife,  or  his  daughter,  when  they 
put  them  up  and  seal  them  with  a  kiss  and  say,  "I  need  a 
hat."  If  there  is  a  dollar  on  the  place,  she  will  get  the 
hat,  and  there  will  a  scene  of  happiness  occur  that  would 
make  an  old  bachelor  pull  his  hair — if  he  has  any.  Colonel 
George  Bain  so  truthfully  says  that  he  never  sees  a  rose 
swinging  in  the  hat  of  a  saloon  keeper's  wife  that  he  does 
not  know  that  it  is  the  rose  out  of  some  other  woman's 
cheek,  and  it  is. 

Then  I  turn  to  a  minister,  a  teacher,  a  physician  and  a 
lawyer,  and  ask  how  they  can  justify  their  occupation. 
One  of  them  lives  by  the  sins  of  the  people,  one  on  their 
ignorance,  one  on  their  pains  and  the  other  by  their  quar- 
rels. The  answer  is  that  it  is  an  accepted  principle  of 
political  economy  everywhere  that  healthy,  inteUigent, 
moral  people  doing  business  in  an  orderly  way  are  always 
better  producers  than  ignorant,  unhealthy,  immoral  people 
doing  business  at  haphazards.  Therefore,  the  minister,  the 
teacher,  the  physician  and  the  lawyer  have  a  place  in  the 
industrial  economy  of  the  community,  because  they  in- 
crease the  productive  power  of  the  people. 

Now,  I  turn  to  a  liquor  dealer  and  say  to  him,  "What  are 
you  doing — are  you  creating  value?  Will  that  which 
comes  to  your  hands  be  worth  more  when  you  are  done 
with  it  than  when  you  got  it?  Will  there  be  more  children 
in  the  public  schools  and  Sunday  schools,  and  will  they  be 
better  clothed  and  better  fed  because  of  your  traffic?  Will 
the  men  of  the  community  be  better  husbands,  fathers,  sons 
and  brothers?  Will  the  women  be  truer  and  nobler  in  their 
lives?  In  short,  will  your  traffic  elevate  the  moral,  social 
or  spiritual  condition  of  the  community?"  If  he  tells  the 
truth  he  will  say,  "No,  sir;  I  am  not  here  to  create  value, 
but  to  destroy  value;  that  which  comes  to  my  hands  will 

[332] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

not  be  worth  more,  but  infinitely  less,  when  I  am  done  with 
it  than  when  I  got  it.  There  will  not  be  more  children  in  the 
public  schools  or  the  Sunday  schools,  nor  will  they  be  better 
clothed,  or  better  fed,  because  of  my  traffic.  The  men  will 
not  be  better  husbands,  fathers,  sons  or  brothers.  I  am  here," 
he  says,  "to  take  sons  from  mothers,  fathers  from  children, 
husbands  from  wives,  brothers  from  sisters.  I  am  here  to 
breed  idiots  and  paupers  and  criminals  and  lunatics  and  spread 
pestilence  among  the  people." 

Some  one  says,  "No,  that  is  unfair;  these  things  may 
occur,  but  they  are  a  by-product,  they  are  merely  inci- 
dental, they  are  apart  from  his  main  purpose.  He  desires 
simply  to  get  the  money."  Very  well,  here  is  a  burglar 
who  breaks  into  the  house  at  night,  he  does  not  really  de- 
sire to  commit  murder.  Probably  not  one  burglar  in  a 
hundred  really  prefers  to  commit  murder.  If  ever  a  bur- 
glar gets  into  your  home,  He  still  and  he  will  probably  not 
harm  you  at  all.  It  takes  a  great  deal  of  self-restraint  to 
He  there  with  your  hands  folded  and  look  peaceful  and 
happy,  while  he  is  working  around  and  gathering  up  your 
watch  and  pocketbook  or  rings  and  other  things  of  interest 
to  him  and  to  you,  but  if  you  will  lie  still  he  will  probably 
not  harm  you  at  all.  Burglars  have  been  in  my  house 
twice.  Of  course,  they  got  badly  fooled,  but  they  have 
been  there  twice  and  never  harmed  me — I  was  away  both 
times. 

But,  a  burglar  goes  to  the  house  with  the  expectation, 
at  least,  of  getting  money  or  property.  If  it  is  necessary 
to  commit  murder  in  order  to  accomplish  his  purpose  and 
escape,  he  stands  ready  to  commit  murder.  Now,  is  not 
that  the  spirit  in  which  the  average  burglar  plies  his  trade? 
Here  is  a  liquor  dealer  who  says — and  many  of  them  could 
no  doubt  truthfully  say  the  same  thing — that  he  does  not 
desire  to  commit  murder,  nor  to  break  up  homes  and  sep- 
arate families  and  blast  hope  and  ruin  life  and  spread  pes- 

[333] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

tilence  among  the  people,  but  he  desires  the  money,  and 
if  all  these  evils  must  follow  in  the  wake  of  his  work  he 
stands  ready  nevertheless  to  get  the  money.  Now,  is  not 
that  the  spirit  in  which  the  average  liquor  dealer  plies  his 
trade? 

Please  observe  that  I  am  not  abusing  liquor  dealers. 
Abuse  is  not  argument.  If  all  the  liquor  dealers  in  Amer- 
ica were  placed  on  shipboard  and  sent  to  sea,  and  the 
license  system  allowed  to  stand,  there  would  be  another 
company  of  men  tomorrow  morning  to  take  their  places — 
that  would  not  settle  the  question.  I  am  not  abusing  liquor 
drinkers — I  pity  them.  If  all  such  were  likewise  on  ship- 
board and  sent  to  sea,  and  the  license  system  allowed  to 
stand,  there  would  be  another  crop  of  drunkards  next  year 
to  fill  the  ranks.    That  would  not  settle  the  question. 

If  we  would  dry  up  this  moral  ulcer  of  the  nations,  if  we 
would  heal  this  open  sore  of  the  world,  we  must  stop  the 
manufacture,  the  importation,  the  sale  and  transportation 
of  this  iniquitous  thing.  There  is  no  ultimate,  permanent 
and  final  solution  for  the  liquor  traffic  but  annihilation. 
To  aim  at  anything  nearer  or  easier  as  a  permanent  solu- 
tion is  to  ignore  history  and  invite  defeat. 

Here,  then,  is  a  traffic  which  lessens  the  demand  for  the 
helpful  things  of  life,  increases  the  cost  and  the  difficulty 
of  production  and  diminishes  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
people.  To  claim  that  such  a  thing  is  beneficial  to  business 
is  to  do  violence  to  language,  logic,  history,  economics  and 
common  sense. 


[334] 


WILBUR  FLETCHER  SHERIDAN 


WILBUR  FLETCHER  SHERIDAN  is  the  General 
Secretary  of  the  Epworth  League  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  and  one  of  the  big  men  of  his 
denomination.  In  the  active  ministry  for  years,  he  has  held 
some  of  the  highest  pastorates  in  the  country.  He  has  signal 
ability  as  an  orator  and  is  in  constant  demand  by  two  very 
intellectual  classes  of  audiences — the  colleges  and  the  large 
ministerial  gatherings  of  the  country.  His  work  with  the 
Squadron  began  at  Peoria,  Illinois,  September  30th,  and  ended 
with  Jacksonville,  Florida,  March  6th,  the  duties  of  his  official 
position  requiring  his  attendance  at  the  spring  conferences  of 
his  denomination. 

Dr.  Sheridan  brought  to  the  Squadron  the  active  support 
of  the  Epworth  Leaguers  of  the  Nation,  and,  in  conjunction 
with  Dr.  Daniel  A.  Poling,  gave  it  a  grip  upon  the  hearts  of 
the  young  people  of  the  country  which  it  could  not  otherwise 
have  secured.  His  part  in  the  great  movement  has  endeared 
him  to  the  hearts  of  thousands. 


[337] 


UNEXPECTED  RE-ENFORCEMENTS. 

ON  the  18th  day  of  June,  1815,  at  a  quarter  of  four 
o'clock,  Napoleon  Bonaparte  took  out  his  watch,  and, 
with  that  grim  smile  of  his  dictated  a  despatch  to 
Paris.    It  read :    "The  Battle  of  Waterloo  is  won  for  France." 

But  a  little  later,  out  of  the  woods  at  the  northeast,  burst 
the  Allies'  re-enforcements  under  Blucher.  The  impact  of  that 
fresh  body  of  troops  caused  Napoleon's  "Old  Guard"  to  stag- 
ger, gave  Wellington's  crumbling  iron  squares  on  the  hill  a 
chance  to  re-form;  the  French  were  driven  back,  at  first  in 
confusion,  and  then  in  rout.  And  the  sun  of  Napoleon  set 
that  night  in  endless  gloom.  It  was  the  unexpected  re- 
enforcements  that  turned  the  almost  defeat  of  the  Allies  into 
glorious  victory. 

So  it  is  the  unexpected  re-enforcements  to  the  cause  of 
prohibition  today  that  is  changing  the  almost  defeat  of  a  few 
years  ago  into  glorious  victory. 

For  be  it  understood  we  are  having  such  victory  today  as 
our  cause  never  saw  before.  You  can  start  in  at  tidewater, 
in  old  Virginia  and  cross  that  Mother-State  of  Presidents 
into  West  Virginia,  and  across  the  latter  into  Tennessee,  and 
across  Tennessee  to  Arkansas,  and  across  it  to  Oklahoma  and 
Kansas,  and  through  these  to  Colorado,  and  across  it,  diagon- 
ally, to  Idaho,  and  across  Idaho  to  Oregon,  and  across  Oregon 
and  Washington  to  the  sea — and  it's  dry  all  the  way.  You 
can  cross  the  Continent  from  ocean  to  ocean  without  getting 
your  feet  wet ! 

Now,  when  we  remember  that  an  area  equal  to  all  the 
eighteen  Prohibition  States  is  dry  through  the  operation  of 
local  option,  we  begin  to  see  what  rapid  strides  prohibition 
is  making — and  most  of  it  in  the  last  two  or  three  years.  I 
used  to  live  in  Kentucky.  That  was  ten  years  ago.  I  lived 
there  when  the  State  was  wet  from  rim  to  rim.     I  lived  there 


[339] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

long  enough  to  learn  to  love  the  old  Blue  Grass  State.     Every 
once  in  a  while  I  find  myself  singing  softly: 

"Take  me  back  to  old  Kentucky, 
To  the  State  where  I  was  born ; 
Where  the  corn  is  full  of  kernels, 
And  the  Colonels  full  of  corn." 

But  that  song  has  gone  out.  For  today  ninety  out  of  one 
hundred  and  six  counties  in  Kentucky  are  as  dry  as  Kansas. 
And  it  was  just  the  other  day  that  nine  counties  went  dry, 
including  old  Bourbon  County,  the  home  of  Bourbon  whisky ! 
Why,  it  is  enough  to  make  a  lot  of  those  old  Kentucky  colonels 
turn  over  in  their  graves  when  they  get  the  news  by  subter- 
ranean telegraph  that  old  Bourbon  County  has  gone  dry. 

Then,  there  is  my  own  State  of  Illinois,  for  I  live  now  in 
Chicago,  that  the  past  year  put  out  of  business  more  than  a 
thousand  saloons — put  them  out  through  the  votes  of  the 
newly-enfranchised  womanhood  of  Illinois.  And  why 
shouldn't  the  women  have  a  right  to  vote  upon  this  greatest 
of  all  moral  and  domestic  questions?  Or  upon  all  questions, 
for  that  matter?  For  when  God  made  woman,  as  Dr.  Tal- 
mage  once  phrased  it.  He  took  her  not  from  man's  side,  to  be 
his  slave,  nor  from  his  head  to  be  his  master,  but  from  his 
side.  And  she  should  walk  by  man's  side  in  all  the  ways  of 
life,  his  companion  and  equal. 

By  such  victories  as  these  the  area  of  dry  territory  is  ex- 
panding, until  we  have  a  grand  total,  including  county  and 
State  dry  territory,  of  two-thirds  of  the  area  of  the  Nation, 
and  three-fifths  of  the  population,  under  prohibition. 

I  feel  concerning  local  option  and  State  prohibition  a  good 
deal  as  Johnny  did  when  he  was  invited  out  for  dinner.  His 
mother  said :  "Now,  Johnny,  remember  to  be  very  polite. 
And  when  the  maid  serves  the  last  course  and  asks  you 
whether  you  will  take  pie  or  ice  cream,  you  must  answer : 

[340] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

'Thank  you,  ma'am,  I  like  both  and  will  take  either.'  "  "Never 
fear,  mother,"  said  Johnny,  "I'll  do  it  right !"  And  when  the 
maid  asked  him  he  promptly  replied :  "Thank  you,  ma'am,  I 
like  either  and  will  take  both." 

I'll  take  local  option  pie  and  State  prohibition  ice  cream. 
But  I  am  on  my  way  to  the  Nation-wide  prohibition  water- 
melon, and  I'll  never  rest  until  we  get  it. 

This  recent  amazing  growth  of  prohibition  in  the  United 
States  has  been  made  possible  by  the  arrival  of  unexpected 
re-en  f  orcements. 

First,  there  is  the  re-enforcement  that  has  come  from  the 
exigencies  of  war.  The  vise-like  grip  of  a  great  necessity 
compels  European  nations  to  keep  their  soldiers  at  their  best. 
Hence  the  English  Government  puts  liquor  for  soldiers  under 
the  ban  and  restricts  its  sale  and  use  at  home.  Lord  Kitchener 
has  issued  an  appeal  to  English  soldiers  to  abstain  wholly 
from  liquor,  in  which  he  is  joined  by  the  Surgeon-General  of 
the  English  army  and  a  score  of  the  leading  physicians  of  the 
realm.     They  base  their  appeal  on  the  following  grounds : 

First.  Liquor  confuses  the  mind  when  clearness  and 
promptness  of  action  are  needed. 

Second.     Liquor  increases  fatigue. 

Third.  Liquor  increases  the  septic  danger  in  wounds  and 
lessens  the  power  of  resistence  of  the  body. 

Fourth.     Liquor  increases  the  susceptibility  to  disease. 

Fifth.     Liquor  lessens  the  accuracy  of  aim  in  firing. 

But  England  has  not  been  alone  in  her  opposition  to  liquor. 
France  has  abolished  the  sale  of  absinthe  throughout  the  Re- 
public. And  so  eminent  a  paper  as  The  Figaro,  of  Paris,  ad- 
vocates the  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  all  intoxicants. 

Emperor  William  made  the  statement  at  the  outset  of  the 
war  that  the  Nation  that  used  the  least  liquor  would  win.  So 
pronounced  has  become  his  attitude  against  liquor  drinking, 
according  to  reliable  report,  that  he  sends  a  letter  to  the  mother 
of  every  new-born  child  in  Germany  urging  that  mother  never 

[341] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  permit  liquor  to  pass  the  lips  of  her  child.  While  the  use 
of  the  lighter  forms  of  liquor  is  permitted  in  the  German 
Army  the  official  pressure  for  its  discontinuance  is  very  strong. 

Most  striking  of  all  is  the  complete  wiping  out  of  the  liquor 
trade  in  Russia.  The  Czar's  proclamation  abolishing  its  sale 
will  take  its  place,  in  my  judgment,  among  the  great  charters 
of  human  liberty  of  the  ages.  It  will  take  its  place  alongside 
the  Magna  Qiarta  of  King  John  and  the  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

A  second  re-enforcement  to  the  cause  of  prohibition  has 
been  the  greatly  increased  use  of  the  principle  of  eminent  do- 
main. More  and  more  the  State  and  municipal  governments 
are  exercising  that  right  for  the  benefit  of  the  common  mass 
of  the  people.  The  taking  over  of  property  or  land  by  the 
city  for  public  works ;  the  exercise  of  sanitation  restrictions ; 
the  enlargement  of  the  police  powers  of  the  State  and  the 
like.  All  these  mark  the  recognition  of  the  right  of  society 
to  exercise  a  certain  control  of  the  individual  for  the  sake 
of  the  common  welfare.  And  this  re-enforces  in  marked 
degree  the  sentiment  for  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

Still  a  third  re-enforcement  is  the  attitude  of  science.  A 
distinguished  professor  of  Harvard  University  said  recently : 
"Science  has  set  her  face  like  a  flint  against  liquor." 

Where  the  medical  profession  even  a  few  years  ago  en- 
couraged a  wide  use  of  liquor  as  a  medicine  and  treated  lightly 
its  use  as  a  beverage,  now  medical  men  by  the  thousand  are 
treating  its  use  as  a  beverage  as  a  grave  peril  and  as  a  disease, 
while  an  increasing  number  of  them  have  reduced  to  a 
vanishing  point  its  employment  as  a  medicine,  and  a  consid- 
■erable  number  will  not  prescribe  it  under  any  circumstances 
whatever.  Among  the  last  named  is  Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg,  of 
Battle  Creek,  who  in  the  forty-five  years  of  his  great  sani- 
tarium, has  never  once  made  use  of  alcohol. 

Within  the  past  ten  years  the  employment  of  alcohol  as  a 
therapeutic  agent  has  decreased  from  fifty  to  eighty  per  cent. 

[342] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

in  Bellevue  Hospital,  New  York,  in  Cook  County  Hospital, 
Chicago,  and  in  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital. 

It  is  cause  for  rejoicing  that  leaders  of  scientific  investiga- 
tion in  Germany  are  taking  the  same  position.  Such  men  as 
Doctors  Kraepelin,  Meyer,  Bergman  and  Prinz  have  published 
extensive  data,  gathered  after  the  customary  exhaustive 
method  of  German  research.  These  experiments  show  that 
even  a  little  alcohol  decreases  a  laboring  man's  muscular 
power.  The  ergograph — "work-register" — of  Prof.  Kraepe- 
lin shows  over  and  over  the  same  results — beer,  as  well  as 
the  stronger  liquors,  weakens  the  strength  of  day  laborers. 
Prof.  Prinz  found  that  it  took  him  one-fourth  longer  to  climb 
a  mountain  when  he  had  indulged  in  one  glass  of  beer. 
"There  is  a  seven  per  cent,  decrease  in  the  working  efficiency 
of  the  accountant  or  desk-worker  after  imbibing  one  glass 
of  beer."  Mathematical  processes — even  the  most  simple — 
become  more  difficult  and  the  errors  more  numerous  after 
the  use  of  even  a  little  liquor.  The  power  to  distinguish 
colors  is  greatly  lessened,  and  often  entire  color-blindness 
ensues.  The  ratio  of  accidents  in  mills  and  factories  as  be- 
tween drinkers  and  abstainers  is  as  twenty  to  eight. 

Science  has  joined  in  the  war  against  liquor  and  her  in- 
fluence is  incalculable. 

The  fourth  re-enforcement  is  from  the  world  of  sport. 

Formerly  we  thought  of  sport  and  liquor  as  inseparable. 
It  is  not  so  today.  Here  again  the  requirement  is  for  brain 
and  brawn  at  their  best.  Hence  the  fiat  has  gone  forth, 
"Liquors  must  be  barred." 

The  foot-ball  coach  says:     "No  drinker  need  apply." 

Such  baseball  managers  as  Hughey  Jennings  and  Connie 
Mack  and  a  score  more  of  the  great  baseball  leaders  say  to 
their  men :  "You'll  have  to  cut  out  booze  if  you  play  ball 
with  us." 

Johnny  had  appendicitis.     His   mother   was  a   Christian 

[343] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Scientist,  his  father  a  surgeon.  His  mother  said:  "Johnny 
you  must  forget  it."    But  his  father  said:    "Cut  it  out!" 

This  is  true  of  all  lines  of  athletics.  Swimming,  running, 
jumping,  hammer  throwing,  and  the  rest — all  utter  the  same 
word  of  banishment  for  drink. 

Tom  Sharkey,  ex-pugilist,  now  saloon  keeper,  complains 
that  the  thing  that  is  killing  the  saloon  business  is  the  fact 
that  every  high  school  boy  is  being  taught  that  he  cannot 
make  good  in  athletic  sports  and  drink. 

Jesse  Willard,  the  new  champion  in  pugilism  has  never 
drunk  a  drop.  He  says  that  drink  is  the  cause  of  the  going 
to  pieces  of  most  pugilists.  He  said  a  few  days  ago  that 
New  York  sports  used  to  make  all  manner  of  fun  of  him 
because  he  would  not  run  around  with  them  to  the  saloons ; 
and  that  now  those  same  fellows  are  trying  to  borrow  money 
of  him.  John  L.  Sullivan,  one-time  champion,  declares  that 
it  was  liquor  that  broke  him  down. 

In  the  world  of  sport  it  is  "Thumbs  down"  for  John  Bar- 
leycorn. 

The  fifth  re-enforcement  is  the  changed  attitude  of  the 
press. 

Ten  years  ago  one  scanned  the  larger  American  dailies  in 
vain  for  one  good  word  for  prohibition.  Now  many  dailies 
in  large  cities  support  the  principle.  Such  papers  as  the 
Philadelphia  North  American  and  the  Kansas  City  Star,  for 
instance.  According  to  recently  gathered  figures  six  hundred 
dailies,  lafge  and  small,  have  come  out  for  prohibition.  And 
a  still  larger  number,  including  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  the 
Herald,  the  Philadelphia  Ledger,  etc.,  have  eliminated  liquor 
advertising  from  their  columns.  Such  great  weekly  papers 
as  Collier's  and  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  have  taken  a 
similar  attitude.  And  when  the  liquor  advertising  goes  it  is 
amazing  how  quickly  the  facts  concerning  the  ruin  and  misery 
caused  by  drink  get  into  their  columns. 

The  enormous  sums  thus  voluntarily  surrendered  by  these 

[344] 


vSpeeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

newspapers  are  in  themselves  patent  proof  of  the  grip  that 
temperance  conviction  has  gotten  upon  the  Nation's  mind. 

A  daily  in  the  central  west  came  out  a  few  weeks  ago  with 
a  rabid  anti-prohibition  editorial.  A  friend  of  mine  wrote  a 
letter  of  protest  to  the  editor,  and  received  a  reply  which  I 
was  privileged  to  read.     It  ran  something  like  this : 

"Your  letter  received.     I  am  frank  to  say  that  since 

writing  the  aforementioned  article,  I  have  heard  from  the 

owner  of  this  paper  and  to  my  surprise  find  that  he  has 

adopted  views  similar  to  your  own.     I   can  assure  you 

that  the  utterances  of  this  paper  on  the  subject  of  liquor 

will  be  modified." 

The  whole  situation  in  the  case  of  the  public  press  is  full 
of  promise.  It  is  true  that  there  are  still  many  daily  papers 
whose  vitterances  on  this  subject  are  dictated  by  the  breweries 
and  distilleries.  Poor  old  St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati  and  San 
Francisco  are  still  in  Egyptian  darkness.  Many  newspaper 
editors  throughout  the  country  eat  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
big  brewers — are  owned  by  them  body  and  breeches.  But 
the  number  who  have  thrown  off  the  chains  of  serfdom  is 
delightfully  large  and  is  growing  larger  every  day.  May  the 
time  hasten  when  all  the  press  shall  scatter  abroad  "leaves 
for  the  healing  of  the  Nations,"  instead  of  for  their  debauch- 
ment  and  ruin. 

Greatest  of  all  the  re-enforcements  to  the  cause  of  prohi- 
bition has  been  the  change  of  front  of  "Big  Business." 

The  railways,  the  mines,  the  big  manufacturing  enterprises, 
the  great  mercantile  houses  and  the  life  insurance  companies 
— practically  all  of  them  have  aligned  themselves  against 
liquor.  Over  the  gate  of  factory  and  shop  and  railway  yard 
and  mine  enclosure  are  the  words  "No  drinker  need  apply." 

The  railways  are  enforcing  rigid  rules  against  liquor  drink- 
ing by  employes,  and,  to  make  their  enforcement  easier,  are 
building  club  houses  or  Y.  M.  C.  A.  buildings,  where  their 
men  may  h^.ve  all  the  social  and  refreshment  advantages  of 

[345] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  saloon  without  its  curse  of  rum.  Mines,  factories  and 
the  like  are  following  in  the  same  line  of  procedure. 

The  reasons  are  not  far  to  seek.  The  accidents  in  mill  and 
mine  and  railway  are  traced  usually  to  drink.  For  instance : 
One  on  a  road  in  the  East  two  years  ago  where  fifty  people 
were  killed  and  double  as  many  injured,  was  shown,  under 
official  inquiry  to  have  been  caused  by  the  engineer  running 
past  three  danger  signals — and  he  had  taken  two  glasses  of 
liquor  before  he  started  on  his  run. 

When  Andrew  Carnegie  testified  before  the  Government 
Industrial  Commission  a  few  weeks  ago  in  New  York  he 
said  his  rule  has  been  to  employ  no  man  who  drank.  On 
the  first  violation  of  this  rule,  warning  was  given ;  on  a  second 
violation,  suspension;  on  a  third  violation  the  man  was  dis- 
charged. 

The  Edison  Works,  at  Orange,  N.  J.,  the  International 
Harvester  Company ;  the  Interborough  Traction  Company ; 
the  Sheffield  Car  works ;  the  Sherwin-Williams  Paint  Com- 
pany ;  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  similar  gigantic  enterprises,  have  similar  stringent  anti- 
drinking  rules.  Indeed,  the  bigger  the  business,  the  surer  it 
is  to  have  anti-drinking  rules  in  force. 

Some  one  asked  Mr.  Edison :  "Don't  you  drink,  Mr.  Edi- 
son?" "No,  sir!"  emphatically  answered  the  wizard  of 
Menlo  Park,  "I  have  better  use  for  my  brains." 

A  high  official  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  Mr. 
C.  L.  Close,  Commissioner  of  Safety,  recently  declared  that 
the  combined  industries  of  America  would  destroy  the  liquor 
traffic  in  this  country  within  ten  years. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  doomed.  In  many  sections  brewers 
are  adding  soft  drink  manufactories  or  fruit  refrigerator 
plants  to  their  breweries  to  be  prepared  for  the  inevitable 
change.  Within  the  past  few  weeks,  a  leading  distiller  of 
Peoria,  Illinois,  has  declared  that  the  business  cannot  last 
more  than  ten  years.     There  is  a  steady  depreciation  in  the 

[346] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

value  of  existing  breweries;  some  have  gone  into  the  hands 
of  receivers  and  many  have  quit  business.  Some  months  ago 
the  Consumers'  Distillery  Company,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
sent  letters  to  the  Keeley  Cure  at  Dwight,  Illinois,  and  in 
Chicago,  offering  them  its  list  of  forty  thousand  names  of 
customers  at  ten  cents  a  name.  The  letter  went  on  to  say 
that  the  distillery's  present  customers  were  the  Keeley  Cure's 
prospective  ones  and  that  all  of  them  undoubtedly  would  like 
to  break  the  habit  of  drink.  Hence  it  was  an  opportunity 
for  the  liquor  firm  and  the  Keeley  Cure  to  both  profit  by  the 
proposed  deal  as  the  distillery  company  was  going  out  of  busi- 
ness. 

The  Consumers'  Distillery  Company  did  not  state  what  was 
undoubtedly  the  underlying  fact — viz.,  that  with  nearly  all  of 
Kentucky  dry  and  all  of  Tennessee  and  West  Virginia  and 
Arkansas  dry,  its  immediate  patronizing  territory  was  getting 
very  circumscribed  indeed,  and  that  it  was  time  to  run  for 
cover. 

A  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  saloon  keeper,  advertised  his 
saloon  for  sale  and  explained  to  his  friends  that  it  was  not 
because  he  had  all  the  money  he  needed  nor  was  it  because 
his  conscience  hurt  him ;  but  that  he  wanted  to  "get  out  while 
the  getting  was  good,  before  the  roof  fell  in  on  him." 

At  a  recent  saloon  men's  convention  in  Boston  a  delegate 
said  at  the  close:  "Two  years  ago  we  gave  ourselves  twenty 
years  of  life.  Today  we  agreed  we  should  be  lucky  if  we 
have  ten." 

A  group  of  fourteen  traveling  men  were  together  in  a  New 
England  city  during  the  past  winter.  One  of  them  asked  how 
many  were  total  abstainers.  There  was  only  one.  But  when 
it  was  asked  how  many  of  them  would  vote  for  State  prohi- 
bition of  the  liquor  traffic  all  except  one  said  they  would  vote 
for  it;  and  that  one  said  if  there  was  a  chance  at  Nation-wide 
Prohibition  he  would  support  it. 

The  saloon  is  fighting  this  losing  fight  not  only  because  of 

[347] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  unexpected  re-enforcements  that  have  come  to  the  cause 
■of  prohibition  but  because  it  cannot  place  a  single  witness 
on  the  stand  in  its  own  behalf  in  the  court  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion. It  has  an  army  of  paid  advocates  but  not  a  single 
witness. 

A  colored  man  was  brought  into  court  for  alleged  chicken 
stealing.  The  presiding  Judge  asked :  "Have  you  any  lawyer 
to  defend  you?"  "No,  suh,"  was  the  reply.  "Well,  I  will  be 
good  to  you,"  said  the  Court,  "and  will  appoint  Mr.  Brown 
and  Mr.  Jones  here  to  defend  you."  They  took  the  culprit 
over  to  one  corner  of  the  room  and  the  Court  could  overhear 
"alibi"  and  "alibi."  Presently  the  darkey  came  back  to  the 
Judge  with  a  perplexed  look  on  his  face  and  said:  "Jedge, 
dat  was  mighty  kind  ob  you  to  'pint  dem  two  gemmen  to  de- 
fend me.  But,  Jedge!  I'd  like  to  swap  one  ob  dem  lawyers 
for  a  good  witness !" 

This  is  exactly  the  condition  of  the  liquor  trade  today.  It 
has  an  army  of  paid  advocates— lawyers  to  burn !  And,  con- 
fidentially, I  think  a  lot  of  them  are  going  to  burn!  But  it 
has  not  a  man,  woman  or  child  to  stand  up  in  any  court  under 
Heaven  and  testify  "The  liquor  traffic  has  been  a  blessing  to 
me;"  or  "The  liquor  traffic  has  been  a  benefit  to  my  home, 
to  my  friends  or  to  my  community." 

Oh!  there  are  witnesses  enough  concerning  the  business! 
Here  is  the  ragged  urchin  who  sells  papers  down  on  the  street 
corner,  holding  up  his  tattered  coat  sleeves  and  crying  in  shrill, 
piping  voice:  "Dis  is  what  de  saloon  has  done  fer  me!" 
Jane  Addams  says  there  are  one  million  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  children  working  in  America,  two-thirds  of 
whom  are  working  because  drinking  parents  fail  to  provide 
them  means  of  support. 


348] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

"Do  you  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers, 

Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years? 
They  are  leaning  their  young  heads  against  their  mothers ; 

And  that  cannot  stop  their  tears. 
The  young  lambs  are  playing  in  the  meadows, 

The  young  birds  are  twittering  in  the  nest  ; 
The  young  fawns  are  playing  with  the  shadows, 

The  young  flowers  are  blooming  toward  the  West ; 
But  the  young,  young  children,  O  my  brothers ! 

They  are  weeping  bitterly. 
They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others 

In  this  country  of  the  free." 

Yes,  there  are  witnesses  enough  concerning  the  liquor 
traffic.  I  sometimes  walk  down  to  my  office  in  Chicago  by 
way  of  South  State  street,  between  Harrison  and  Eleventh. 
There  you  see  the  "finished  product"  of  the  liquor  traffic. 
Men  with  dishevelled  hair,  bloodshot  eyes,  bloated  faces, 
slouching  gait,  and  ragged  clothes — men  with  an  undescribable 
hopelessness  about  them — men  that  you  would  not  want  to 
meet  in  an  alley  on  a  dark  night.  And  as  they  shuffle  past 
me  they  seem  to  mutter :  "That  is  what  the  liquor  traffic  has 
done  for  me !"  They  are  the  social  misfits,  the  human  dere- 
licts, the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  a  great  city,  converted  into 
so  much  human  junk  by  the  liquor  trade. 

Over  here  is  a  scarlet  house.  By  the  table  in  an  idle  hour 
sits  a  young  woman.  She  looks  as  if  she  were  thirty-five,  yet 
she  is  only  twenty-two.  She  is  driving  memory's  chariot 
over  the  roadway  of  the  past.  It  stops  by  a  cottage  gate  in 
a  distant  village.  Honey-suckles  and  morning-glory  vines 
climb  over  the  windows.  A  sweet-faced  woman  stands  in 
the  open  door — a  woman  whom  once  she  called  mother.  The 
memory  of  it  all  sweeps  over  her  as  the  cold  mist  sweeps  over 
the  moors  from  the  sea,  and  burying  her  face  in  her  hands 

[349] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  hot  tears  flow  through  her  fingers  as  she  sobs :  "Oh,  this 
is  what  the  liquor  traffic  has  done  for  me !" 

In  every  city  the  social  service  experts  and  vice  commis- 
sions report  the  same  thing — from  two- thirds  to  three- fourths 
of  the  women  leading  lives  of  shame  attribute  their  start  to 
drink. 

In  the  court  of  morals,  in  the  court  of  health — as  all  the 
insurance  companies  are  certifying — in  the  court  of  industry, 
in  the  court  of  humanity,  it  is  the  same  story  of  ruin  through 
drink.  The  saloon  has  been  indicted  and  convicted  in  them 
all.  Modern  civilization  pronounces  the  drinker  a  nuisance 
and  the  liquor  traffic  a  crime.  The  enormous  wealth  of  the 
brewer  and  distiller  has  secured  the  postponement  of  sen- 
tence in  the  large  cities  and  in  some  other  sections.  Judges 
and  executives  here  and  there  have  succeeded  in  thwarting 
the  will  of  the  people,  as  in  Utah  recently.  Influential  men 
at  the  bar  and  at  the  editorial  desk  have  used  their  brilliant 
gifts  to  obscure  the  truth,  and  have  succeeded  temporarily 
in  throwing  dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  people ;  and  legislators  in 
many  cases  have  turned  Judas  and  betrayed  the  constituents 
who  have  elected  them.  But  this  is  only  a  postponement. 
Their  time  is  short.  The  people  have  made  up  their  mind. 
The  liquor  traffic  that  for  so  long  a  time  has  been  far-reach- 
ing as  commerce  and  as  remorseless  as  the  grave,  dictating 
politics  and  terrorizing  trade,  subsidizing  newspapers  and  city 
councils  and  State  legislatures  and  even  National  congresses, 
and  bidding  open  defiance  to  all  law,  both  human  and  divine, 
has  reached  its  Judgment  Day.  It  is  compassed  about  on 
every  hand  by  the  advancing  armies  of  right.  The  sentence 
of  doom  is  prepared  in  the  words  of  Holy  Writ  itself:  "And 
I  saw  a  woman  sitting  on  a  scarlet-covered  beast,  full  of  names 
of  blasphemy.  And  the  woman  was  arrayed  in  purple  and 
scarlet  and  decked  with  gold  and  pearls  and  precious  stones, 
having  in  her  hand  a  golden  cup  full  of  abominations,  even 
the  unclean  things  of  her  fornications ;  and  upon  her  forehead 

[350] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

a  name  written,  the  mother  of  harlots  and  of  the  abomina- 
tions of  the  earth.  And  her  merchandise  was  gold  and  silver 
and  wine  and  slaves  and  souls  of  men.  And  I  saw  the  woman 
drunken  with  the  blood  of  the  saints,  and  with  the  blood  of 
the  martyrs  of  Jesus.  Her  sins  have  reached  unto  Heaven 
and  God  hath  remembered  her  iniquities.  Render  unto  her 
even  as  she  hath  rendered,  and  double  unto  her  the  double 
according  to  her  works.  Therefore  in  one  day  shall  her 
plagues  come — famine  and  mourning  and  death ;  and  she  shall 
be  utterly  burned  with  fire.  And  the  kings  of  the  earth  who 
committed  fornication  with  her  and  lived  wantonly  with  her, 
shall  weep  and  wail  over  her,  when  they  look  upon  the  smoke 
of  her  burning,  standing  afar  off  for  the  fear  of  her  tor- 
ment, saying,  'Woe,  woe!  For  in  one  hour  is  thy  judgment 
come.     For  strong  is  the  Lord  God  who  judgeth  her!" 

"A  better  day  is  coming,  a  morning  promised  long; 

When  girded  right  and  holy  might 
Shall  overthrow  the  wrong: 

When  Christ  the  Lord  shall  listen 
To  every  plaintive  cry. 

And  stretch  His  hand  o'er  every  land 
With  justice  by  and  by." 

The  liquor  trade  sees  the  handwriting  on  the  wall  and  is  in 
fear.  1  have  been  interested  and  amused  in  reading  liquor 
organs  to  observe  their  attempts  to  retrieve  their  condition. 
They  are  preaching  to  their  trade  and  urging  all  sorts  of  re- 
forms. They  might  as  well  cry  on  the  seashore  in  the  teeth 
of  a  hurricane.  For  the  liquor  trade  is  inherently  and  essen- 
tially immoral.  Its  very  nature  is  lawless.  Several  years 
ago  a  flood  occurred  in  India.  The  waters  spread  over  a 
great  valley  from  hill-top  to  hill-top.  A  man  with  a  rifle 
strapped  on  his  back  took  refuge  on  the  one  island  that  rose 
above  the  flood.     As  he  climbed  to  the  crest  of  the  island 

[351] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

he  found  it  covered  with  animals — wild  animals  and  domestic 
animals,  that  had  taken  refuge  there  from  the  waters.  And 
right  before  him  stretched  a  great  Bengal  tiger,  spent  from 
a  long  swim,  panting  and  whining  with  fear.  But  the  man 
knew  tiger  nature ;  he  knew  that  that  mood  of  the  tiger  would 
pass  in  an  hour  and  the  old  blood-thirsty  passion  re-assert 
itself.  He  knew  there  is  but  one  good  tiger  and  that  is  a 
dead  tiger.  So  unslinging  his  rifle  he  placed  the  muzzle  to 
the  beast's  head  and  shot  it  dead. 

The  liquor  traffic  is  whining  with  fear  today.  But  I  ask 
you  to  remember  that  there  is  only  one  good  saloon — and  that 
is  a  dead  saloon. 

"God  hath  sounded  forth  the  trumpet  that  shall 

never  call  retreat. 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men  before  His 

judgment  seat. 
O,  be  swift,  my  soul,  to  answer  Him !    Be  jubilant 

my  feet ! 
His  Day  is  marching  on  !" 


352] 


CULLA  J.  VAYHINGER 


MRS.  CULLA  J.  VAYHINGER,  widely  known  as  a 
convincing  public  speaker,  a  successful  evangelist 
and  a  writer  on  economic  and  social  questions,  was 
born  in  Bennington,  Indiana,  in  which  State  there  are  few 
women  who  are  better  known  or  more  beloved.  Her  father, 
Charles  W.  Johnson,  was  a  Lincoln  volunteer  in  the  Civil  War 
and  her  mother  is  still  active  in  religious  work  and  interested 
in  all  efforts  for  the  betterment  of  society. 

Mrs.  Vayhinger  was  reared  in  an  atmosphere  of  piety  and 
patriotism.  She  was  educated  at  Moore's  Hill  College,  and 
shortly  after  her  graduation  was  married  to  Monroe  Vay- 
hinger, now  President  of  Taylor  University  at  Upland.  In 
1914,  Mrs.  Vayhinger  received  the  degree  of  A.M.  pro  honor e 
from  her  alma  mater. 

When  but  seventeen  years  of  age  she  became  interested  in 
the  work  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  and 
gave  her  name  as  a  member  of  that  organization.  From  that 
day  her  devotion  to  the  cause  has  been  constant  and  unswerv- 
ing and  her  service  continuous  in  local,  county,  state  and 
national  work. 

Since  1903  she  has  been  President  of  the  Indiana  Woman's 
Christian  Temperance  Union,  which,  under  her  efficient  lead- 
ership, has  become  a  power  for  righteousness  and  a  recognized 
factor  in  the  moral  development  of  the  State. 

In  public  addresses  her  distinguished  appearance,  winsome 
personality,  and  her  thoughtful  and  convincing  argument  make 
a  powerful  appeal. 

Mrs.  Vayhinger  joined  Governor  Hanly  and  Mr.  Stewart  in 
the  preliminary  campaign  of  the  Flying  Squadron  in  April, 
1914.  Mrs.  Ella  A.  Boole  spent  the  summer  of  1914  in  Europe, 
The  outbreak  of  the  war  delayed  her  return,  and  upon  her 
arrival  she  found  the  duties  of  her  position  as  President  of 
the  New  York  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  such 
that  she  was  unable  to  join  the  Squadron  until  it  reached 
Rochester.    Mrs.  Vayhinger  filled  her  place  at  no  inconsider- 

[355] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

able  sacrifice.  Participating  in  the  initial  meetings  at  Peoria, 
she  continued  as  a  member  of  the  Second  Group  to  Rochester, 
New  York. 

Her  work  was  efficient  and  of  high  value. 


356] 


THE  LIQUOR  TRAFFIC  A  CHALLENGE  TO  THE 
CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 

TO  ALL  MEN  in  all  ages  the  rythmic,  stately  tread  of 
the  conqueror  has  been  attractive.  Even  the  child  looks 
with  admiration  upon  the  man  who  has  met  an  opposing 
force  and  mastered  it,  no  matter  whether  it  be  a  rival  ball 
team,  some  known  law  of  science,  or  a  nation.  God  himself 
puts  his  seal  on  the  spirit  of  mastery  when  He  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  John  the  Revealer  the  promise,  "Him  that  over- 
cometh  will  I  make  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  my  God,  and  he 
shall  go  no  more  out  forever."  Again,  when  he  saw  the  open- 
ing of  the  seals  of  the  book  he  said,  "I  saw  a  white  horse  and 
he  that  sat  on  him  had  a  bow,  and  a  crown  was  given  unto 
him,  and  he  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer." 

Men  have  braved  dangers  of  air,  sea  and  land,  in  order  to 
wear  the  laurel  wreath  of  the  conqueror. 

Hamilcar,  the  Carthagenian,  took  his  nine-year-old  son, 
Hannibal,  to  the  altar  of  Baal,  placed  his  tiny  fist  upon  that 
altar  and  had  him  swear  eternal  enmity  to  Rome.  When 
twenty-six  years  of  age  Hannibal  was  made  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army,  and  decided  to  carry  the  war  into  Italy. 
In  the  year  218  B.  C.  he  set  out,  through  hostile  tribes,  over 
the  swift  Rhone,  and  pressed  his  way  to  the  foot  of  the  Alps. 
The  mountaineers  hurled  huge  stones  upon  his  men  as  they 
wearily  toiled  up  the  steep  ascent.  Snow  blocked  their  way. 
They  came  to  places  where  the  sharp  crack  of  a  whip  or  a 
loud  voice  might  start  the  avalanche  from  the  impending 
heights.  Men  and  horses  slipped  on  the  ice-fields  and  rolled 
over  the  awful  abyss.  Roads  must  be  cut  through  solid  rock 
by  hands  benumbed  with  cold  and  weakened  by  hunger.  When 
at  last  he  reached  the  sunny  plains  of  Italy  there  marched 
with  him  twenty-six  tliousand  of  the  one  hundred  and  two 
thousand  with  whom  he  had  started  five  months  before.  In 
the  eighteen  months  that  followed,  one-fifth  of  all  the  Roman 

[357] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

citizens  able  to  bear  arms,  had  fallen  in  battle,  and  all  of  this 
in  order  that  Hannibal  might  return  to  Carthage,  a  conqueror. 

Years  later.  Napoleon  called  his  engineers  together,  and 
asked  if  it  were  possible  to  carry  his  men  with  the  munitions 
of  war  across  St,  Bernard's  Pass.  They  answered  that  it  was 
within  the  realm  of  possibility.  "It  is  enough,"  he  said,  and 
began  preparations  for  the  march.  The  old  generals  of  Eng- 
land and  Austria  laughed  him  to  scorn.  To  attempt  to  trans- 
port an  army  across  the  Alps,  where  no  wheel  had  ever  rolled, 
consisting  of  sixty  thousand  men,  ponderous  artillery,  tons  of 
cannon  ball  and  baggage,  with  all  the  bulky  munitions  of  war, 
was  fool-hardiness  and  the  vision  of  a  dreamer.  But  besieged 
Massena  was  starving  in  Genoa,  victorious  Austrians  were 
thundering  at  the  gates  of  Nice.  He  would  go.  He  inspected 
with  rigid  care  everything  carried  by  the  army.  Worn  shoes, 
old  coats,  damaged  muskets  were  discarded,  and  the  column 
swept  forward.  High  on  those  craggy  steeps  bands  of  army 
men  appear  like  phantoms.  The  eagle,  which  had  soared  above 
him,  now  wheels  and  screams  beneath  the  marching  men. 
The  mountain  goat  flees  before  the  strange  spectacle.  When- 
ever they  come  to  a  hard  place.  Napoleon  orders  every  band 
to  play,  and  they  pass  seemingly  insurmountable  barriers  to 
the  strains  of  music.  After  four  days  of  marching  the  twenty 
miles  of  men  led  by  this  dauntless  leader,  marched  into  Italy. 
Napoleon's  mastery  of  circumstances  and  conditions,  chal- 
lenges the  admiration  of  every  reader  of  history. 

Alexander's  tread  shook  the  known  world  as  he  sought  to 
mould  into  one  empire  the  divers  nations  of  the  globe  that 
he  might  rule  over  it  all. 

We  admire  the  conqueror  in  the  intellectual  realm.  The  man 
who  by  the  light  of  the  pine  knot,  studies  himself  into  a  states- 
man; or  standing  by  the  forge  attains  mastery  of  a  foreign 
language,  or  the  man  who  burns  the  midnight  oil  that  he  may 
solve  the  intricate  problems  of  mathematics  and  science;  these 
are  the  men  whom  the  world  delights  to  honor. 

[358] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  man  who  harnesses  nature  and  compels  her  to  do  his 
bidding,  receives  our  generous  applause.  The  statesman,  who 
catches  a  glimpse  of  the  need  of  the  whole  country,  and  frames 
a  law  to  meet  that  need,  is  honored  by  every  true  patriot.  The 
man  who  by  close  application  and  hard  work,  overrides  poverty 
and  misfortune  and  attains  success  in  the  business  world,  is 
held  up  as  an  example  to  every  boy  in  like  circumstances. 
These  advances  are  all  hailed  as  harbingers  of  a  higher 
civilization. 

We  today  are  proud  of  being  Americans.  Our  broad  fields 
produce  enough  to  feed  our  own  and  the  thousands  who  come 
to  our  shores  daily.  Our  mountains  carry  in  their  bosoms 
coal  to  warm  us  and  our  little  ones,  drive  our  wheels  of  in- 
dustry and  carry  us  and  our  products  to  the  remotest  nations 
of  the  globe.  We  have  the  greatest  inland  water-way  and  the 
greatest  network  of  railroads  in  the  world.  Our  school  system 
is  the  pride  of  every  American.  We  tax  ourselves  yearly  two 
hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  dollars  in  order  that  every  boy 
and  girl,  black  and  white,  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low,  may 
have  an  education.  No  community  is  left  unchurched.  Every 
State  cares  for  its  unfortunate,  delinquents  and  dependents. 
Some  of  the  greatest  inventors,  educators,  and  statesmen,  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  have  been  cradled  in  our  log  cabins. 
Many  of  the  greatest  questions  pertaining  to  the  human  race 
have  been  settled  on  American  soil.  Every  flag  on  the  high 
seas  dips  to  "Old  Glory,"  for  she  has  never  been  hauled  down 
in  defeat.  But  listen !  We  may  conquer  every  element  in 
nature,  we  may  master  the  learning  of  every  land,  we  may 
open  our  store-house  of  material  wealth  and  bid  the  nations 
enter  and  enjoy  with  us  these  riches,  and  yet  we  may  fail  to 
meet  the  world's  sorest  need  and  accomplish  our  God-given 
mission. 

The  greatest  need  of  the  world  today  is  not  more  education, 
nor  more  material  wealth,  but  it  is  crying  out  for  a  conquering 
religion ;  not  Mohammedanism,  which  must  be  propagated  by 

[359] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  sword ;  not  Brahmanism,  which  depends  upon  the  credulity 
of  the  people  for  its  growth ;  not  Buddhism,  which  appeals  to 
the  inborn  selfishness  of  men;  not  Confucianism,  which  is 
purely  ethical  and  political  in  its  teachings,  but  a  religion  which 
combines  a  belief  in  the  true  God  and  His  Son  Jesus  Christ, 
with  the  practice  of  the  principles  laid  down  in  His  revealed 
word,  and  taught  by  the  Son  in  the  three  years  He  walked  with 
men  as  their  teacher.  In  other  words,  Christianity  applied  to 
every  phase  of  human  life. 

Constantine,  marching  against  Maxentius,  the  rival  Augus- 
tus at  Rome,  saw  in  the  sky  at  midday  a  flaming  cross  with  the 
inscription,  "By  this  conquer."  The  Cross  of  Calvary,  which 
is  the  emblem  of  Christianity,  is  the  banner  which  the  army 
must  carry  which  is  to  drive  back  the  darkness  of  ignorance 
and  sin  and  bring  light  and  peace  to  the  world ;  which  is  to 
strike  the  shackles  from  slaves  of  greed  and  avarice,  and 
destroy  the  evils  which  endanger  our  national  life. 

Four  and  a  half  centuries  before  Christ,  Nehemiah  was 
serving  as  cup-bearer  to  the  King  in  Shushan,  the  palace.  A 
wanderer  from  Jerusalem  came  down  and  Nehemiah  asked 
him  concerning  the  condition  of  the  Jews.  He  replied  that 
the  remnant  that  were  left  of  the  captivity  there  in  the  province 
were  in  great  affliction  and  reproach.  The  walls  of  the  city 
were  torn  down  and  the  gates  burned  with  fire,  and  they  were 
an  easy  prey  of  enemies  within  and  without.  Nehemiah 
prayed  to  God  to  send  some  one  to  build  again  the  walls  of 
the  sacred  city,  and  God  answered  by  calling  him  to  do  the 
work.  Nehemiah  went  to  Jerusalem  and  began  his  task.  First 
the  enemies  of  the  enterprise  despised  their  feeble  efforts  and 
laughed  them  to  scorn,  but  when  they  saw  that  the  wall  was 
rising,  near  completion,  and  that  the  breaches  began  to  be 
stopped,  they  conspired  to  come  and  fight  against  the  work- 
men, that  the  work  might  cease.  But  Nehemiah  had  been 
called  and  sent  of  God  to  repair  the  wall  and  it  must  be  built 
even  though  it  be  built  on  the  dead  bodies  of  the  enemies  of  the 

[360] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

enterprise,  so  he  called  the  workmen  together  and  instructed 
them.  From  that  time,  "they  which  builded  on  the  wall  and 
they  that  bear  burdens,  with  those  that  laded,  every  one  with 
one  of  his  hands  wrought  in  the  work,  and  with  the  other 
hand  held  a  weapon.  For  the  builders,  every  one  had  a  sword 
girded  by  his  side  and  so  builded."  Just  so  Christianity — 
conquering  Qiristianity— must  be  dual  in  its  nature.  It  must 
be  both  constructive  and  destructive.  It  must  bear  the  trowel 
for  building  up  the  wall  of  Zion,  but  it  must  bear  the  sword 
which  signifies  warfare.  It  must  teach  and  preach  and  bring 
the  world  to  Christ,  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  strike  to 
destroy  every  enemy  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

We  have  done  a  magnificent  constructive  work  for  the 
Kingdom.  Our  churches  reach  out  the  helping  hand  and  bring 
the  Tidings  of  Hope  to  men  in  every  condition  of  life.  We 
are  bringing  the  transforming  power  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
to  bear  on  the  dark  corners  in  our  own  land,  as  well  as  to  the 
remotest  Isles  of  the  Sea,  and  I  would  not  minimize  the  impor- 
tance of  this  work.  It  must  be  done  and  a  Christianity  without 
this  constructive,  missionary  element  in  it,  would  be  no  Chris- 
tianity at  all,  but  we  must  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
there  are  enemies  to  our  great  work,  who  would  not  only 
hinder  the  building  but  who  do  not  hesitate  to  tear  down  what 
we  have  already  builded  at  the  cost  of  both  gold  and  blood. 
The  liquor  traffic  is  the  Sanballet  arrayed  against  the  Church 
of  Christ. 

Today  in  many  of  our  States  the  saloon  herds  men  and 
drives  them  to  hell  in  droves.  It  murders  helpless  babes  at 
the  mother's  breast,  and  robs  our  children  of  their  sacred 
right  to  be  well  born  and  well  trained.  It  chains  these  little 
ones  to  the  tread  mill  of  toil  and  brings  them  prematurely  to 
old  age  and  the  grave.  It  takes  from  the  home  the  son,  for 
whom  the  mother  has  gone"  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  and  sends  him  back  to  her  a  maudlin  idiot,  robbed 
of  reason,  love  and  virtue.    It  fills  our  jails  and  penitentiaries 

[361] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

with  the  ilower  of  American  manhood  which  has  been  blighted 
by  its  hot,  poisoned  breath.  It  stretches  on  our  gallows  and 
thrusts  into  our  electric  chairs,  men  who  were  made  criminals 
by  its  cruel  hand.  It  peoples  the  red  light  district  with  girls 
who  have  been  caught  as  flies  in  a  trap  in  its  gilded  wine 
rooms  and  "ladies'  dining  rooms."  The  laws  on  our  statute 
books  are  trampled  under  its  unholy  feet  as  it  marches  defiantly 
under  the  red  flag  of  anarchy  which  it  has  hoisted  and  on 
which  is  emblazoned  the  words,  "Prohibition  don't  prohibit." 
And  yet  in  every  State  there  are  enough  church  members  to 
break  up  forever  this  traffic  in  death.  Bishop  Berry,  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  said  at  one  time,  "The  saloon 
would  kill  the  church  if  it  could,  and  the  church  could  kill 
the  saloon  if  it  would."  If  this  be  true,  surely  God  will  not 
hold  the  church  guiltless  in  the  great  day  of  reckoning,  when 
all  those  damned  because  of  this  curse,  stand  before  Him  in 
judgment. 

\\^e  are  confronted  with  the  fact  that  the  saloons  and 
brothels  dictate  the  policy  of  our  average  city.  Respected  men, 
even  some  church  members,  live  on  the  income  from  dives  and 
saloons.  Leaders  of  churches  vote  for  men  in  public  office 
who  connive  at  law-breaking.  The  police,  chosen  as  the  city's 
guardians,  guard  these  human  devils  and  protect  them  as  they 
prey  on  our  boys  and  girls.  Girls  rot  in  rooms  within  reach 
of  the  ear  of  the  police.  The  easy  church  member  sits  in  his 
pew  on  Sunday  morning  and  sings : 

"Stand  up,  stand  up  for  Jesus, 
Ye  soldiers  of  the  Cross, 
Lift  high  His  royal  banner, 
It  must  not  suffer  loss. 
From  vict'ry  unto  vict'ry 
His  army  shall  He  lead, 
'Til  every  foe  is  vanquished. 
And  Christ  is  Lord  indeed." 
[3621 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  preacher  preaches  on  some  archselogical  discovery,  or  ex- 
plains the  miracles  of  Jesus  Christ,  by  natural  methods.  The 
Christian  Scientist  says,  "All  evil  exists  in  your  mind,"  and 
the  devil  laughs,  and  the  awful  tragedy  goes  on. 

But  these  easy  guardians  of  the  peace  of  the  church  tell  us, 
"It  is  not  the  church's  business  to  array  itself  against  these 
powerful  organized  evils."  As  well  may  the  gardener  excuse 
himself  from  weeding  his  garden,  or  the  stock  raiser  from 
making  war  on  the  mites  that  suck  the  life-blood  of  his  stock, 
or  the  nurseryman  from  spraying  to  destroy  the  death  produc- 
ing germs  on  his  orchard,  as  for  the  churchman  to  attempt  to 
excuse  the  church  from  leading  the  crusade  against  these 
organized  evils  on  the  ground  that  it  is  not  the  church's  busi- 
ness. When  God  thundered  the  law  from  Mt.  Sinai,  when 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  taught  by  the  sea  and  on  the  mountain  side, 
they  with  one  stroke  swept  away  all  middle  ground  on  which 
the  Christian  might  stand  in  his  relation  to  sin.  They  raised 
the  black  flag  which  meant  no  quarter  to  the  liquor  traffic  and 
its  allies,  and  woe  to  the  so-called  Christian  man,  who  attempts 
to  haul  it  down  and  to  run  up  in  its  stead  the  white  flag  of 
truce  and  rest  inactive  beneath  its  protecting  folds. 

Luther's  denunciation  of  the  sale  of  indulgences  was  just 
as  much  a  part  of  his  work  as  the  preaching  of  that  beautiful 
doctrine,  "The  just  shall  live  by  faith  alone."  Huss,  Savon- 
arola and  John  Knox,  found  it  necessary  to  attack  sin  in  both 
church  and  state,  while  they  were  proclaiming  the  great  truths 
of  the  Gospel.  In  fact,  Christians  came  into  existence  as  rebels. 
They  believed  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  growing  out  of  this  belief, 
was  opposition  to  the  national  religion  of  the  empire,  refusal 
to  offer  sacrifices  to  other  gods  or  to  worship  the  emperor, 
absenting  themselves  from  games,  feasts  and  festivals,  and 
finally  gathering  themselves  together  in  secret  at  night,  for  all 
of  which  they  were  persecuted.  Some  were  crucified,  head 
down.  Some  were  cast  into  boiling  cauldrons  of  oil.  Some 
were  covered  with  the  skins  of  animals  and  worried  to  death 

[363] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

by  dogs.  Some  were  thrown  to  tigers  and  lions.  Old  men  were 
forced  to  meet  the  gladiator  in  the  arena,  and  then  Nero  con- 
summated that  crime  of  crimes  when  he  lighted  his  gardens 
with  the  burning  bodies  of  the  Christians — why?  Because 
they  believed  in  Jesus  Christ?  No,  net  because  of  their  belief, 
but  because  they  dared  attack  falsehood  in  the  church  and  sin 
in  the  nation.  For  this  reason  Jerome  was  tied  to  the  stake. 
The  fagots  were  piled  high  about  him,  the  executioner  came 
up  from  behind  to  light  the  fire.  Jerome  turned  his  head  about 
and  said,  "Light  the  fire  in  front  of  me,  please ;  had  I  feared 
fire  I  should  not  have  been  here !" 

They  might  have  believed  in  Jesus  Christ  from  that  day 
to  this  and  never  suffered  persecution,  but  it  has  ever  been 
the  blood  of  the  martyrs  that  has  been  the  seed  of  the  church. 
The  martyr  spirit  has  been  the  conquering  spirit.  When  the 
church  sheaths  the  sword  which  should  be  wielded  against  the 
enemies  of  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  refuses  to  cry 
aloud  against  the  prevailing  sin  which  is  destroying  the  peo- 
ple, she  exchanges  the  proud  tread  of  the  conqueror  for  that 
of  the  cringing  coward,  and  loses  her  power  over  mankind. 

If  the  church  does  not  destroy  these  evils,  to  whom  shall  we 
look  for  this  work?  I  do  not  expect  the  brewer's  heart  to 
soften,  nor  the  distiller  to  change  his  attitude,  or  his  business, 
and  I  fully  expect  there  will  continue  to  be  men  who  will  reach 
out  to  filch  revenue  from  the  till  of  the  saloon  keeper,  but  I 
do  not  believe  your  Master  and  mine  expects  His  followers 
to  be  in  this  crowd.  Christ,  the  world  and  even  the  liquor 
traffic  itself,  expects  the  church  to  destroy  this  evil.  Let  us 
not  disappoint  them ! 

I  want  to  be  understood  on  two  points.  First,  our  fight  is 
not  against  the  saloon  alone,  but  against  the  liquor  traffic.  The 
saloon  is  the  eruption  on  the  surface,  throwing  out  the  pus 
and  poison  produced  by  the  brewery  and  distillery  beneath. 
The  saloon  is  the  delta  through  which  the  brewerv  and  dis- 
tillery throw  their  liquid  fire  and  damnation  upon  the  people. 

[364] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

The  saloon  is  the  smoke  stack  belching  its  black  cloud  of 
pollution,  produced  by  the  brewery  and  distillery  engine  be- 
neath, out  upon  social,  religious  and  political  America.  You 
might  as  well  expect  to  cure  a  boil  by  scratching  off  the  top 
of  it,  to  eliminate  the  Mississippi  by  damming  up  its  delta,  or 
to  destroy  the  factory  by  covering  up  its  smoke  stack,  as  to 
expect  to  get  rid  of  the  liquor  traffic  by  putting  out  a  saloon 
here  and  there  and  leaving  the  brewery  and  distillery  in  opera- 
tion. Any  law  that  does  not  strike  at  the  manufacture  of  liquor, 
as  well  as  its  sale,  will  fail  to  accomplish  our  desire. 

In  Indiana  we  have  tried  every  method  in  dealing  with  this 
evil,  except  the  right  one.  We  first  had  a  law  by  which  we 
remonstrated  each  month  against  each  saloon  keeper  who 
applied  for  license.  Under  this  law  we  kept  out  a  few  saloons. 
After  two  years  it  was  amended  and  the  remonstrance  was 
made  to  cover  all  applications  in  any  township.  With  this 
new  law  other  saloons  were  closed.  Later  we  were  given  the 
county  option  law,  and  under  this  we  voted  the  saloons  out 
of  seventy  of  our  ninety-two  counties.  Then  we  came  before 
the  Legislature,  asking  for  State-wide  Prohibition  of  both  man- 
ufacture and  sale  of  liquor.  Instead  of  getting  it,  we  got  the 
repeal  of  our  county  option  law  and  in  its  stead  a  township 
and  city  option  law.  Under  this  we  voted  the  saloons  back 
into  more  than  thirty  of  our  dry  counties.  All  of  these  years 
we  have  been  hoping  and  working  to  decrease  drunkenness 
with  its  attendant  evils  in  the  State,  but  we  have  used  a  method 
that  affected  only  the  saloon,  and  that  in  spots,  and  of  course 
have  largely  failed. 

It  reminds  me  of  a  young  doctor  who  was  walking  along  a 
country  road  at  midnight.  In  the  course  of  his  walk  he  passed 
a  cemetery.  In  front  of  the  cemetery  gate  stood  a  large  auto- 
mobile. "How  strange,"  said  the  doctor,  "an  automobile  in 
front  of  a  cemetery  gate  at  midnight  can  mean  only  one  thing 
and  that  is  body  snatchers.  There  was  a  hedge  fence  on  the 
other  side  of  the  road,  so  the  doctor  went  over,  crawled  under 

[365] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  fence  to  watch  what  would  go  on.  After  a  little  while 
out  of  the  cemetery  came  two  men,  and  sure  enough,  they 
were  carrying  a  corpse  between  them.  They  came  to  the  car, 
dragged  the  corpse  into  the  back  seat,  put  him  into  a  sitting 
posture  in  one  corner  of  the  seat,  put  a  hat  on  his  head,  pulled 
it  carefully  down  over  his  eyes,  tucked  a  laprobe  round  about 
him,  and  after  they  had  him  fixed  up  so  they  thought  he 
couldn't  get  away,  they  went  back  into  the  cemetery  to  fill  up 
the  hole  where  they  had  dragged  him  out.  The  doctor  came 
from  under  the  hedge  fence,  dragged  the  corpse  out  of  the 
back  seat  and  took  him  over  to  where  he  had  been  lying,  then 
he  climbed  into  the  back  seat  of  the  automobile,  put  the  hat 
on  his  head,  pulled  it  down  over  his  eyes,  tucked  the  laprobe 
carefully  about  him,  crossed  his  hands  in  front  of  him,  and 
waited  the  return  of  the  men.  They  came  back  in  a  great 
hurry.  One  of  them  jumped  into  the  back  seat,  snuggled  up 
close  against  the  corpse,  put  one  arm  about  his  shoulders  to 
hold  him  in  position,  while  the  other  took  the  wheel,  and  they 
started  at  a  lively  rate  toward  the  college.  They  had  not  gone 
far  when  the  man  holding  the  corpse  said,  "Say,  Jim,  this 
is  the  warmest  corpse  I  ever  felt  in  my  life."  "A  warm 
corpse!  Now  who  ever  heard  tell  of  a  warm  corpse?  Sam, 
you're  getting  cold  feet."  They  rode  on  for  a  few  moments 
in  silence.  Finally  Sam  could  stand  it  no  longer,  so  he  said, 
"Jim,  if  you  don't  believe  this  corpse  is  warm  just  reach  back 
here  and  feel  of  him."  The  driver  carelessly  threw  one  hand 
back  and  touched  the  hand  of  the  corpse.  Just  then  the  corpse 
said,  "If-you-had-been-where-I-have-been-for-the-last-three- 
days-you'd-be-warm-too."  The  men  never  waited  to  hear  the 
corpse  describe  the  place  where  he  had  been,  but  jumped  out 
of  the  car  and  left  the  doctor  the  possessor  of  it,  and  he  owns 
it  to  this  day. 

Many  times  in  Indiana  we  have  thought  we  had  a  corpse 
in  the  saloon,  but  every  time  we  found  we  had  a  warm  corpse, 
and  I  will  tell  you  why.     The  saloon  draws  its  heat  from  the 

[366] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

very  same  place  the  corpse  indicated  he  drew  his,  and  it  draws 
it  by  means  of  the  brewery  and  distillery.  Until  you  destroy 
the  engine  you  have  not  killed  the  liquor  traffic. 

The  manufacturers  of  alcoholic  liquors  would  have  us  think 
the  disreputable  saloon  is  the  cause  of  all  this  outcry,  and 
that  the  poor  innocent  manufacturer  is  having  to  sufifer  be- 
cause of  the  sins  of  this  class  of  saloonists ;  that  if  saloons 
were  law-abiding,  kept  good  fixtures  and  a  semblance  of  re- 
spectability, the  agitation  against  them  would  cease.  But  we 
have  learned  that  the  so-called  respectable  saloon  is  the  most 
dangerous  one  in  our  community.  Clinton  Howard  says,  "If 
I  meet  the  devil  I  want  him  to  look  like  the  devil,  act  like 
the  devil,  and  smell  like  the  devil.  If  there  is  a  saloon  which 
does  not  look,  act  and  smell  like  his  majesty,  that  is  the  most 
dangerous  one." 

In  the  second  place,  I  want  to  be  understood  as  speaking 
for  the  prohibition  of  the  traffic.  The  Flying  Squadron  of 
America  is  not  a  temperance  society,  but  is  advocating  a 
definite  policy  for  the  State  and  Nation  in  dealing  with  the 
Hquor  traffic,  and  that  is,  TO  PROHIBIT  IT  BY  LAW. 

There  is  much  confusion  in  the  minds  of  the  people  today 
because  of  the  foggy  thinking  about  "temperance,"  and  "pro- 
hibition." The  words  have  been  used  interchangeably  for 
so  long  that  we  are  prone  to  look  upon  them  as  synonyms,  and 
yet  it  signifies  little  in  these  days  for  a  man  to  class  himself 
as  a  temperance  man.  The  liquor  advocates  themselves  claim 
to  be  temperance  men.  but  we  have  never  heard  of  them 
favoring  prohibition.  The  railroad  company  would  make  a 
temperance  man  of  each  employee,  but  it  does  not  seek  to 
make  of  him  a  Prohibitionist.  In  other  words,  temperance 
is  an  individual  question,  prohibition  is  a  social  one.  A  man 
may  drink  in  his  own  parlor,  and  so  long  as  his  habit  does 
not  affect  any  other  man,  woman  or  child,  the  State  may  have 
no  right  to  interfere ;  but  when  a  man  opens  a  brewery,  dis- 
tillery or  saloon  and  consummates  a  sale,  that  is  a  social  act, 

[367] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  the  State  has  a  perfect  right  to  regulate  or  even  prohibit 
it.  Temperance  is  a  matter  of  private  habit,  prohibition  is  a 
matter  of  public  policy. 

Temperance  deals  with  the  dram  drinker,  prohibition  deals 
with  the  dram  maker  and  seller.  The  liquorites  raise  the 
cry  that  you  have  no  right  to  say  what  a  man  may  eat  or 
drink.  A  prohibitory  law  is  not  directed  primarily  against 
the  man  who  drinks  any  more  than  the  law  against  the  sale 
of  tainted  meat  is  directed  against  the  man  who  enjoys  eating 
a  spoiled  steak,  or  the  law  against  the  sale  of  watered  milk  is 
directed  against  the  man  who  finds  watered  milk  better  for 
his  digestion  than  pure  milk.  These  laws  are  directed  against 
the  unscrupulous  seller  who  for  the  sake  of  a  few  paltry  dol- 
lars would  endanger  the  health  of  the  whole  community,  and 
so  the  law  prohibiting  the  sale  of  alcoholic  liquors  is  directed 
against  the  man  who  for  the  sake  of  a  few  paltry  dollars  would 
not  only  endanger  the  health  of  the  community  but  would  steal 
every  joy  from  childhood,  wring  the  last  drop  of  blood  from 
the  heart  of  womanhood  and  destroy  the  manhood  of  every 
mother's  son  in  that  community. 

Temperance  is  a  moral  question.  It  is  promoted  by  moral 
suasion  and  if  directed  against  brewers,  distillers,  and  saloon 
keepers,  it  is  a  failure.  Prohibition  is  a  legal  question.  It 
is  promoted  by  legal  compulsion,  and  if  directed  against  these 
same  gentlemen  it  is  a  success.  No  cause  ever  had  more 
faithful,  consecrated  Christian  workers  than  did  the  Woman's 
Crusade,  started  in  Ohio  in  1873.  These  women,  with  mighty 
faith  in  God,  visited  the  saloons,  praying  and  urging  the  saloon 
keepers  to  go  out  of  the  business  and  close  up  their  saloons. 
Some  of  them  did  go  out,  but  other  men  bought  these  places 
and  started  other  saloons,  so  no  permanent  decrease  in  the 
number  of  saloons  followed  this  mighty  wave  of  consecrated 
effort.  The  women  saw  the  futility  of  such  methods  and 
organized  the  Woman's   Christian   Temperance  Union,   with 

[368] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  slogan,  "Total  abstinence  for  the  individual,  and  prohi- 
bition for  the  liquor  traffic." 

Temperance  would  keep  a  man  away  from  these  tempta- 
tions, prohibition  denies  the  right  of  the  maker  and  seller  to 
place  temptation  in  the  way  of  any  man. 

Temperance  recognizes  the  right  of  individual  liberty  and 
freedom  along  right  lines,  prohibition  is  based  on  the  right 
of  society  to  protect  itself  against  acts  of  individuals  who 
work  harm  to  others. 

The  temperance  agitation  which  has  been  carried  on  through 
the  public  schools,  the  public  press  and  from  the  pulpit  and 
platform,  has  been  a  gathering  storm,  increasing  in  fury  with 
each  succeeding  generation.  Prohibition  is  the  mighty  deluge 
of  waters  bursting  in  all  its  fury  upon  a  trade  which  has 
polluted  American  life  and  made  our  religion  a  hissing  and  a 
by-word  among  heathen  nations. 

The  church  has  always  stood  at  the  back  door  of  the  saloon 
and  tried  to  catch  some  of  the  human  drift  cast  out  by  it, 
but  it  is  time  for  her  to  change  her  position  in  relation  to  it. 
It  is  not  enough,  living  as  we  do  in  the  effulgent  light  of 
scientific  teaching  on  the  effect  of  alcohol  on  past,  present 
and  future  generations,  that  we  seek  to  rescue  these  wrecks 
and  if  possible  lead  them  to  our  Christ  for  salvation.  No 
more  bitter  sentence  is  pronounced  upon  man  in  the  word 
of  God  than  the  one  pronounced  upon  him  who  causes  his 
brother  to  stumble.  If  I  stand  by  and  see  men  and  women 
stumble  to  their  death  over  an  obstacle  which  I  might  be  able 
to  help  remove,  I  am  responsible  before  God  and  in  the  eyes 
of  men  for  that  loss  of  life.  But  you  say,  "I  am  only  one  and 
cannot  remove  the  liquor  traffic."  You  may  never  be  able 
to  close  a  single  saloon,  brewery  or  distillery  and  yet  you,  as 
an  individual,  are  responsible  for  doing  a  man's  part,  a  wom- 
an's part  toward  bringing  about  what  you  know  to  be  the  ideal 
condition  in  this  country. 

Not  only  should  every  Christian  work  and  vote  for  prohi- 

[369] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

bition,  but  every  true  patriot  who  loves  his  country's  flag 
should  find  his  chief  joy  in  striking  to  kill  this,  her  deadliest 
foe.  Let  others  sing  the  praises  of  England's  Union  Jack,  of 
Turkey's  crescent  and  star,  Italy's  crown  and  shield,  of  Japan's 
rising  sun,  and  of  China's  dragon,  but  none  of  these  can  com- 
pare with  the  Stars  and  Stripes — 

"With  her  red  for  truth,  with  her  white  for  law. 
With  her  blue  for  the  hope  which  our  fathers  saw." 

That  emblem  which  proclaims  to  tyrants  the  great  truth  that 
they  cannot  forever  oppress  their  subjects ;  that  all  govern- 
ment is  founded  on  certain  eternal  principles  of  right,  and 
that  no  one  man,  no  body  of  men,  no,  not  even  a  majority,  dare 
trample  under  feet  these  divine  principles. 

Today  this  emblem  which  has  cost  the  best  blood  of  three 
generations  to  dye,  is  prostituted  to  protect  a  trade  which  is 
un-American  because  it  makes  impossible  the  exercise  of  rights 
guaranteed  by  the  constitution  and  anarchistic  because  it  defies 
every  law  written  for  its  regulation. 

Nothing  but  Nation-wide  Prohibition  will  take  the  flag  from 
the  rendezvous  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  put  it  where  it  ought 
to  float,  on  the  home,  the  church  and  the  school.  For  this 
purpose  the  prohibition  clans  are  gathering  and  even  now  the 
death  struggle  is  on.  With  Dr.  Dickie,  "I  am  not  here  with 
blanched  cheek  and  quavering  voice  and  trembling  limb,  to 
tell  you  that  one  or  the  other  must  go  down.  I  am  here 
with  my  feet  on  the  solid  rock,  Christ  Jesus,  my  front  to 
the  foe  and  my  eyes  on  the  stars,  to  tell  you  that  the  cross  of 
Christ  will  prevail,  civil  liberty  will  live,  and  the  liquor  traffic 
will  die."  You  ask,  "When?"  \\'hen  those  who  believe  in 
prohibition  stop  compromising,  awake  from  their  indifference 
and  strike  through  the  ballot  box.  "In  the  theater  of  man's 
life  God  and  the  angels  only  should  be  lookers  on." 

|3;oi 


JOHN  B.  LEWIS 


JOHN  B.  LEWIS  is  a  native  of  Wilmington,  Mass.  He 
is  a  self-made  man,  his  parents  having  been  in  some- 
what limited  circumstances.  After  graduating  from 
high  school  and  serving  as  a  volunteer  in  the  war,  he  en- 
gaged in  the  manufacture  of  shoes.  He  was  credited  with 
selling  more  shoes  to  the  retail  shoe  trade  of  the  United 
States  than  any  other  Boston  manufacturer,  and  was  a 
pioneer  in  the  sale  of  American  shoes  abroad.  Retiring 
from  active  business  a  decade  ago,  he  has  since  been  the 
"busiest"  retired  man  in  Massachusetts,  devoting  much  of 
his  time  and  means  to  philanthropic  work,  his  especial  in- 
terests being  temperance  and  patriotism  as  exemplified  in 
good  citizenship. 

Mr.  Lewis  has  many  temperance  affiliations.  He  is  Vice- 
Chairman  of  the  Prohibition  National  Committee,  Treasurer 
of  the  Massachusetts  State  Prohibition  Committee,  Vice-Pres- 
ident and  Trustee  of  Prohibition  Trust  Fund  Association,  one 
of  the  Managers  National  Temperance  Society,  Trustee  New 
York  Civic  League,  Director  and  Member  Executive  Commit- 
tee Massachusetts  Total  Abstinence  Society,  and  a  Director  of 
the  Scientific  Temperance  Federation.  He  is  a  life  member  of 
the  World,  National  and  Massachusetts  State  W.  C.  T.  U.  and 
of  the  National  Temperance  Society.  He  is  also  life  mem- 
ber of  the  Boston  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  the  Baptist  Home  Mission- 
ary Society,  the  New  England  Sabbath  Protective  League, 
and  the  National  Geographic  Society.  He  is  a  member  of 
Edward  W.  Kinsley  Post  No.  113,  G.  A.  R.,  of  Boston,  and 
has  served  two  years  as  National  Patriotic  Instructor  of 
the  G.  A.  R.  He  is  the  founder  and  President  of  the  Na- 
tional Association  of  Patriotic  Instructors. 

He  gave  ten  thousand  dollars  to  the  Flying  Squadron, 
and  acted  as  its  Treasurer  throughout  the  campaign  to 
Jefferson  City,  Mo.,  from  September  until  April,  accom- 
panying it  throughout  its  itinerary.  In  April  he  resigned 
the  treasurership  and  returned  to  his  home  .in  Boston. 

[373] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Mr.  Lewis  is  not  an  orator,  but  his  wide  and  varied 
experience  as  a  business  man  and  a  man  of  affairs,  enables 
him  to  make  a  clear  and  forceful  presentation  of  any 
cause  he  wishes  to  present.  He  was  not  a  member  of  the  reg- 
ular speaking  battery  of  the  Squadron,  but  spoke  con- 
stantly, almost  every  day  and  evening,  throughout  the 
campaign  from  Peoria  to  Jefferson  City,  giving  daily,  de- 
voted and  unremitting  service. 

A  traveler  in  many  lands,  visiting  most  countries  of  the 
world,  he  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  conditions  at  home 
and  abroad. 


[374] 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  PATRIOTISM. 

IF  I  were  offered  a  choice  of  all  the  past  ages  of  the 
world  in  which  to  live,  I  would  refuse  them  all,  pre- 
ferring to  live  today.  Never  in  all  history  were  greater 
movements  for  social  uplift  in  progress  than  those  of  the 
present. 

When  we  consider  the  vast  amount  of  poverty  and 
suffering  on  every  hand  which  is  due  to  the  saloon,  can  we 
call  ourselves  true  American  patriots  unless  we  vow  to 
fight  this  monster  to  the  death?  Shall  we  not  say,  like  the 
color  bearer  who  was  asked  if  he  would  carry  the  flag  into 
battle,  "I  will,  or  report  to  the  throne  of  God  the  reason 
why!"? 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest !  A  change  is  taking  place. 
The  public  conscience  is  awakening.  Measures  are  every- 
where being  urged  for  the  destruction  of  this  curse,  and 
there  should  be  no  cessation  of  effort  until  it  is  stamped 
from  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  Only  the  finest  and  highest 
and  purest  of  patriotic  effort  will  bring  success. 

It  seems  alm.ost  incredible  that  wath  the  universal 
knowledge  we  have  of  the  destructive  character  of  this  foe 
of  God  and  humanity  that  the  majority  of  our  citizens, 
men  who  would  rally  to  the  defense  of  our  country  if  it 
were  threatened  by  human  enemies  from  without  or  with- 
in, will  vote  to  legalize  the  saloon.  Knowing  the  inroads 
which  the  liquor  habit  is  making  upon  even  the  flower  of 
American  manhood,  is  such  a  course  in  any  sense  patriotic? 

We  cannot  ignore  the  heartbreak  of  the  mothers  and 
fathers,  the  wives  and  innocent  children,  nor  the  misery 
and  deprivation  of  those  who  are  dependent  upon  the 
patrons  of  the  saloon.  There  is  also  the  economic  aspect, 
as  exemplified  in  the  care  by  the  State,  at  the  expense  of 
the  sober  and  industrious  portion  of  the  community,  of 
these  alcohol  drinkers  and  their  dependents. 

[375] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

It  is  true  that  among  our  varied  American  activities 
we  find  scientific  research,  economics,  morahty  and  effi- 
ciency standing  for  the  prohibition  of  the  saloon,  but  these 
must  be  animated  by  the  spirit  of  true  patriotism  if  they 
are  to  succeed  in  their  object. 


[376] 


EUGENE  W.  CHAFIN 


EUGENE  W.  CHAFIN  was  born  in  East  Troy,  Wiscon- 
sin, November  1,  1852,  being  the  ninth  in  a  family  of 
thirteen  children.  Mr.  Chafin's  father  died  October  14, 
1865,  which  left  the  care  of  the  farm  largely  in  his  hands. 

He  attended  the  district  and  graded  schools  and  was  gradu- 
ated from  the  University  of  Wisconsin  at  Madison  in  1875, 
with  the  degree  of  LL.B.,  and  the  same  day  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin. 

While  practicing  law  at  Waukesha  he  was  elected  justice 
of  the  peace  and  held  the  office  three  terms  of  two  years 
each,  and  was  then  elected  police  justice  for  two  years.  He 
served  two  terms  as  State  President  of  the  Epworth  League 
of  Wisconsin. 

No  kind  of  temperance  work  has  escaped  him.  He  was  a 
delegate  to  the  National  Prohibition  convention  in  1884  and 
every  one  since  then,  and  was  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Platform  in  1900.  He  was  a  member  of  the  National 
Committee  of  the  Prohibition  Party  for  Wisconsin  from  1888 
to  1896,  and  is  a  member  now  from  Arizona. 

The  National  Convention  of  the  Prohibition  Party  met  at 
Columbus,  Ohio,  July  15,  1908.  On  the  16th,  when  names 
were  being  presented  for  the  presidential  candidate,  without 
the  knowledge  or  consent  of  Mr.  Chafin  his  old  friend,  A.  G. 
Wolfenbarger  of  Nebraska,  in  one  of  the  most  unique  speeches 
ever  made  in  a  nominating  convention,  presented  his  name  as 
"the  choice  of  Nebraska."  It  took !  On  the  third  ballot  out 
of  1,070  votes  Mr.  Chafin  received  636  and  was  declared  the 
nominee  of  the  Prohibition  Party  for  President  of  the  United 
States.  In  1912  Mr.  Chafin  was  again  nominated  by  acclama- 
tion for  President,  at  the  Atlantic  City  National  Prohibition 
Convention. 

Mr.  Chafin  was  among  those  who  first  conceived  the  Squad- 
ron campaign.  Pie  was  present  when  the  enlistment  pledge 
was  formulated,  assisted  in  drafting  it  and  assented  to  its 
terms.    Owing  to  his  candidacy  for  the  United  States  senator- 

[379] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ship  he  did  not  join  the  Squadron  in  its  campaign  until  it 
reached  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  November  15th.  He  continued 
with  it  from  Lincoln  to  Cincinnati,  December  19th,  when  he 
retired  because  his  financial  needs  were  such  that  he  could 
not  go  on  for  the  meager  compensation  the  members  were 
receiving.  He  was  not  in  accord  with  National  Prohibition 
by  constitutional  amendment.  He  knew,  however,  from  the 
beginning  that  such  an  amendment  was  to  be  advocated  by 
the  Squadron  and  agreed  he  would  not  speak  against  it  in 
the  campaign.  He  was  not  to  speak  for  it.  He  was  simply 
to  remain  silent.  This  restriction  grew  irksome  to  him  and 
had  much  to  do  with  his  withdrawal. 

After  his  retirement  there  was  perfect  accord  among  the 
members  of  the  Squadron  and  the  campaign  was  waged  with 
increased  vigor  and  devotion. 

When  asked  to  furnish  a  copy  of  the  address  used  by  him 
while  he  was  with  the  Squadron  he  refused  to  furnish  it,  but 
offered  to  furnish  one  in  which  he  vigorously  attacks  National 
Constitutional  Prohibition.  That,  the  editors  of  this  volume 
could  not  accept.  No  such  speech  had  been  delivered  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Squadron.  It  would  be  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  the  purpose  for  which  the  Squadron  was  organized 
and  in  flat  contradiction  of  the  campaign  it  conducted.  There 
is,  therefore,  no  complete  address  of  Mr.  Chafin's  in  the  book. 
The  brief  address  used  is  made  up  of  excerpts  from  news- 
paper reports  of  addresses  actually  delivered  by  Mr.  Chafin 
at  different  points  while  speaking  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Squadron.  They  are  substantially  accurate,  however,  and 
very  well  illustrate  his  force  as  a  speaker  and  the  character 
of  his  oratory. 


[380] 


EXTRACTS  FROM  MR.  CHAFIN'S  ADDRESSES  DE- 
LIVERED AT  ERIE,  PA.;  MANCHESTER,  N.  H.; 
CHESTER,  PA.;  LINCOLN,  NEB.,  AND 
BRIDGEPORT,  CONN. 

YOU  can  never  settle  any  great  question  in  America  of  a 
moral  nature  without  adopting  a  single  set  of  standards. 
My  text,  if  I  can  be  said  to  speak  on  any  text,  is  "One 
Standard  of  Morals."  Men,  you  cannot  settle  a  moral  ques- 
tion by  submitting  it  to  the  people  and  letting  them  vote  on  it. 

History  has  taught  us  the  futility  of  attempting  to  decide 
once  and  for  all  any  moral  question  by  a  double  set  of  stand- 
ards, people  in  one  section  doing  one  thing  and  in  another 
portion  doing  something  just  the  opposite. 

In  1850  California  asked  to  be  admitted  to  the  Union.  In  the 
Senate  a  great  controversy  arose.  Southern  senators  said  they 
would  pass  the  bill  if  the  State  be  admitted  as  a  slave  State, 
and  Northern  senators  were  equally  emphatic  in  their  de- 
mands for  a  free  State.  It  was  then  suggested  that  the  matter 
be  referred  to  the  people  of  the  territory,  and  that  they  decide 
it  for  themselves.  You  will  remember  that  the  State  was 
admitted  under  a  compromise,  (acts  of  1850).  Later,  in  1854, 
when  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  divided  as  territories  and 
the  question  of  their  admittance  was  before  Congress,  Stephen 
A.  Douglass  suggested  that  the  territories  decide  whether  or 
not  slavery  be  allowed  by  referendum.  Buchanan,  who  later 
became  President,  endorsed  this  grand  old  Jefifersonian  prin- 
ciple of  popular  decision  of  the  slave  question. 

When  Lincoln  faced  Douglass  in  that  great  senatorial  fight 
in  Illinois,  he  said:  "Slavery  is  either  right  or  it  is  wrong. 
I  believe  that  slavery  is  wrong.  I  deny  the  right  of  a  majority 
of  the  people  to  rule  that  a  slave  must  be  put  back  where 
once  there  was  no  slave." 

Here  is  the  situation:  A  man,  a  candidate  for  United 
States  senator,  standing  up  before  election  and  denying  the 

[381] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

right  of  the  people  to  decide  their  own  moral  questions.  Lin- 
coln practically  refused  the  senatorship  from  Illinois  if  he 
had  to  take  it  under  circumstances  which  opposed  his  prin- 
ciples.    Men,  it's  a  long  slide  from  Lincoln  to  Billy  Lorimer. 

Lincoln,  who  wrote  the  purest  English  since  Shakespeare, 
summed  up  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  any  attempt  to  settle 
a  moral  question  by  popular  vote  in  just  three  sentences: 

"One  portion  of  the  country  believes  slavery  is  right  and 
that  it  should  be  extended.  One  portion  believes  slavery  is 
wrong  and  should  not  be  extended.  That  is  the  only  sub- 
stantial difference  between   them." 

The  slavery  question  was  not  settled  until  there  was  but 
one  standard  of  morals  for  all  the  territory.  The  history  of 
the  Mormon  trouble  in  Utah  also  shows  the  same  thing.  It 
was  not  a  question  of  local  government.  It  was  a  moral  ques- 
tion and  it  did  not  end  until  the  same  set  of  morals  applied 
to  every  State  in  the  Union.  The  history  of  the  lottery  system, 
open  gambling  countenanced  by  the  United  States,  was  similar. 
Lottery  was  wrong  in  every  State  in  the  Union  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Louisiana ;  with  the  National  Government  offering  no 
objections  lottery  tickets  were  mailed  to  all  parts  of  the 
country.  When  they  were  prohibited  from  entering  the  mails 
the  express  companies  carried  the  tickets.  The  crime  was  not 
stopped  until  the  Government  refused  to  let  them  pass  from 
one  State  to  another,  not  until  there  was  one  standard  of 
morals  for  all  States. 

Since  Lincoln  challenged  the  right  to  settle  moral  questions 
by  popular  vote,  you  have  all  been  more  Lincoln  Republicans 
than  Douglass  Democrats.  You  would  not  tolerate  slavery 
under  the  American  flag.  No,  it  is  wrong.  You  would  not 
tolerate  gambling  or  polygamy  under  the  protection  of  the 
American  flag.    No,  it  is  wrong. 

How  about  tolerating  the  sale  of  liquor?  If  it  is  wrong  to 
sell  liquor  in  one  township  it  is  wrong  to  sell  it  in  the  entire 
country.      The    single    standard   of   morals    applies    as   perti- 

[382] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

iiently  to  this  problem  as  to  these  earlier  moral  questions. 
For  seventy-five  years  we  have  been  trying  to  settle  it  by  any 
number  of  moral  standards.  The  Yankee  is  known  the  world 
over  for  trying  to  do  a  thing  ninety-nine  ways  before  trying 
the  right  way.  Let's  apply  the  lesson  of  the  two  standards 
of  morals  to  this  live  question  now  before  us. 

Vv'e  are  only  asking  that  the  liquor  problem  be  faced  from 
the  same  standpoint.  Many  people  are  inclined  to  put  their 
morals  into  cold  storage  until  after  election.  V\'e  have  tried 
all  kinds  of  legislation,  local  option,  regulation,  high  license, 
and  so  on,  but  we  will  not  have  prohibition  until  every  county 
in  every  State  in  the  Union  is  dry.  If  only  one  county  re- 
mained wet  the  liquor  forces  would  reorganize  and  you  would 
soon  be  having  the  entire  country  wet.  I  would  make  a  saloon 
keeper  move  his  saloon  across  the  street  if  I  could  for  no 
other  reason  than  to  cause  him  trouble.  The  only  way  to  do 
it  is  through  Congress  and  the  President. 

You've  got  to  put  your  belief  on  the  liquor  question  in  the 
ballot  box.  We  have  fourteen  States  now.  I  see  no  reason 
why  we  shouldn't  have  the  entire  country  dry  inside  of  fifty 
months.  In  the  fifteen  hundred  years  of  Anglo-Saxon  history 
we  have  never  lost  a  great  moral  battle.  It  has  often  taken 
time,  but  we  have  usually  come  out  ahead.  It  has  taken  a 
thousand  years  to  settle  most  of  the  questions  which  have 
arisen.  Look  at  the  Mosaic  laws,  the  Magna  Charta,  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  and  the  Emancipation  Proclamation. 
In  each  case  we  ultimately  won  out.  We  can  just  as  well  put 
every  saloon  out  of  the  country.  The  cry  now  is,  "On  to 
Washington." 

It  took  seventy-five  years  to  free  the  slaves,  and  they  never 
v.-ould  have  been  freed  if  the  Federal  Constitution  had  not 
been  amended.  For  years  the  separate  States  fought  lotteries 
until  every  State  in  the  Union  had  abolished  them  except 
Louisiana. 

Finally  the  Federal   Government  took  a  hand  and   forced 

[383] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  lottery  out  of  the  country.  The  same  action  is  needed 
in  the  fight  against  the  liquor  traffic.  State-wide  Prohibition 
helps ;  so  does  county  option.  But  the  real  need  of  this  coun- 
try is  National  Prohibition. 

We  must  make  Congress  pass  a  law  that  will  wipe  the  liquor 
business  out  of  existence.  We  must  fight  the  liquor  traffic  as 
we  fought  slavery,  for  it  is  at  the  root  of  a  slavery  more 
terrible  and  more  permanent  than  that  which  existed  in  the 
South, 

The  West  seems  to  lead  in  the  fight  against  alcohol.  There 
are  nine  Western  States  which  are  prominent  in  this  battle 
which  means  so  much  to  the  Republic.  The  East  seems  to  be 
waking  up,  however,  and  it  is  our  hope  to  see  East  and  West 
with  joined  hands  battling  for  a  common  and  glorious  cause — 
the  defeat  of  the  liquor  traffic  and  all  it  represents.  Arizona 
is  the  greatest  State  in  the  Union.  We  disfranchised  seven 
thousand  foreigners  because  they  were  unable  to  read  or  write 
and  we  granted  the  franchise  to  twenty-two  thousand  women. 
You  people  here  in  Pennsylvania  are  too  conservative.  What 
you  want  to  do  is  to  become  radicals.  Conservative  people 
are  not  mentioned  in  history — it  is  always  the  radicals. 

In  the  next  campaign  we  want  to  get  five  million  people  to 
vote  for  prohibition.  Friends,  do  you  know  that  scunce  has 
outlawed  liquor.  They  know  that  out  in  Arizona.  We  are 
radical  out  there.  Let  us  do  things  because  there  is  a  reason 
for  doing  things.  Pennsylvania  has  a  long  record  of  crimes. 
Here  in  this  State,  the  good  old  Keystone  State,  you  hang 
more  people  than  any  other  State.  Why  the  crime?  There 
must  be  a  reason,  and  you  can  trace  that  reason,  in  most  in- 
stances, to  the  liquor  traffic.  Let  Pennsylvania  become  rad- 
ical. I  feel  that  out  in  Arizona  the  women  are  responsible 
for  the  State  being  dry.  Three-fourths  of  the  women  voters 
cast  their  ballot  for  Prohibition.  We  are  here  for  National 
Prohibition  and  we  are  going  to  win  the  fight. 

There  never  was  such  a  chance  for  great  achievement  in 

[384] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

all  the  world's  history  as  now,  and  God  has  placed  within  our 
reach  everything  w^ith  which  to  do  this.  After  we  got  started 
on  our  great  career  as  a  nation  God  sent  us  inventive  geniuses 
who  gave  us  means  of  rapid  communication  and  transporta- 
tion, so  that  we  can  get  knowledge,  to  all  the  people  of  the 
world.  It  used  to  be  said  we  never  could  reach  the  people 
down  in  central  China — millions  of  them — who  are  uncivilized 
at  the  present  day,  and  if  you  wanted  to  take  the  world  for 
Jesus,  you  never  could  get  there.    Well,  we  have  gotten  there ! 

God  has  given  us  everything  by  which  we  can  destroy  the 
liquor  traffic  and  take  the  world  for  His  truth — given  us 
everything  but  one — courage  enough  to  face  a  righteous  ballot 
box.  The  man  who  votes  to  keep  the  liquor  traffic  in  our 
nation  today  votes  against  the  salvation  of  the  world. 

YOU  cannot  afford  to  be  out  of  this  fight,  the  most  glorious 
battle  for  righteousness  in  all  the  history  of  the  world.  And 
when  we  have  achieved  these  things,  and  accomplished  this 
great  feat  for  which  we  were  preserved  as  a  race  of  God's 
chosen  people,  we  can  truly  sing  the  sentiment  and  words  of 
that  great  Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic, 

"Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord; 
His  cause  is  marching  on !" 


[385] 


CAROLYN  E.  GEISEL 


CAROLYN  E.  GEISEL,  physician,  surgeon,  educator, 
philanthropist,  is  a  devoted  lover  of  little  children, 
and  sincere  servant  of  her  sex.  Born  in  Michigan 
of  German  parentage,  her  father  was  her  first  tutor,  and 
to  him  she  ow^es  the  love  of  science  as  well  as  the  large 
humanitarianism  which  led  her  into  the  study  and  practice 
of  medicine. 

Dr.  Geisel  is  a  regular  physician,  a  graduate  of  the  medi- 
cal department  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  and,  in  addi- 
tion to  a  liberal  academic  education,  has  received  two  other 
medical  diplomas  and  has  pursued  advanced  medical  studies 
in  the  schools  and  laboratories  of  Europe. 

In  1895,  in  the  very  first  years  of  a  successful  practice, 
her  health  failed  and  she  was  taken  to  the  Battle  Creek 
Sanitarium  "to  die."  Her  recovery  was  no  less  than  a 
miracle,  and,  in  gratitude  for  her  life  she  gave  herself 
with  redoubled  zeal  to  the  service  of  humanity. 

In  1895  she  accepted  a  place  on  the  stafif  of  the  Battle 
Creek  Sanitarium- — which  had  given  her  back  her  life — and 
has  continued  with  that  institution  through  twenty  years, 
going  out  from  there  to  "service  for  souls." 

From  1897  to  19CX)  she  devoted  herself  to  rescue  work  in 
the  slums  of  the  world's  largest  cities. 

She  began  her  lecture  work  in  1900,  and  for  fifteen  years 
has  given  herself — literally  body  and  soul — to  the  task  of 
showing  people  how  to  live  healthier  and  happier  lives. 

In  1912  she  again  added  to  the  scope  of  her  work  by 
establishing  in  a  Southern  college  for  women  a  chair  of 
health,  to  which  she  was  called  by  the  college. 

She  is  in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  woman  on 
the  American  platform.  She  came  to  the  Squadron  to 
"voice  the  woman's  appeal,  and  the  babies'  cry  of  protest." 

Her  work  on  the  Squadron  made  a  profound  impression. 
"A  perfect  dynamo  of  power"  she  is  "the  biggest  little  woman 
in  the  world" ;  "a  womanly  woman,  a  powerful  speaker,  a 
crystal  clear  soul." 

[389] 


A  WOMAN'S  APPEAL. 

I  AM  the  President  of  the  largest  woman's  club  in  the 
United  States.  I  am  the  President  of  the  A.  M.  K.— 
"Antique  Maidens'  Klub"  (Laughter) — and  my  club  is 
getting  bigger  and  bigger  and  bigger.  Why  ?  Why  is  this 
club  getting  dangerously  big?  The  American  woman  is 
staying  out  of  the  American  home  and  the  American  home 
is  threatened  with  destruction.  Why?  There  is  a  connec- 
tion between  the  size  of  my  club  and  this  prohibition  move- 
ment, for  the  American  woman  has  discovered  that  she 
cannot  be  home-maker  and  mother  and  at  the  same  time 
do  the  man's  part  of  the  job.  She  cannot  be  provider  and 
protector  and  carry  her  responsibilities  as  home-maker. 
The  American  home  is  threatened  with  destruction  be- 
cause the  American  man  is  failing  in  his  obligation.  The 
Liquor  Dealers'  Association  says  so.  I  take  their  paper, 
and  I  read  it  very  carefully,  and  what  are  they  saying? 
They  say  in  the  next  to  the  last  issue  that  the  drunkard  is 
a  defective.  We  all  know  that.  If  drunkards  are  de- 
fectives, the  American  saloon  is  the  reason,  but  the  thing 
that  puzzles  me  is  that  the  brewers  should  put  that  state- 
ment in  their  own  paper.  Is  it  any  wonder  then  that  the 
woman  who  might  take  upon  her  shoulders  the  responsi- 
bilities of  home-making  and  motherhood  backs  out  of  the 
job  because  she  knows  she  cannot  carry  his  part  of  the 
work  and  him,  too? 

J.  Dewitt  Miller  used  to  have  a  trick  of  saying  that  the 
reason  my  club  is  so  very  large  is  because  the  American 
woman  has  the  good  sense  to  prefer  a  fifty  dollar  job  to 
a  five  dollar  man.  I  never  said  a  drunkard  was  a  five 
dollar  man.  He  is  not  worth  five  dollars  when  the  saloon 
gets  through  with  him  !  But  look  you !  The  brewers  have 
said  with  great  definiteness  that  the  drunkard  is  a  defective. 
You  cannot  have  a  home  without  a  man  in  it — a  strong, 

[391] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

capable  man — an}^  more  than  you  can  have  a  home  without 
a  woman  in  it.  The  responsibihty  is  quite  as  much  his 
as  hers.  And  the  thing  I  would  have  this  audience  under- 
stand is  that  the  American  home  is  not  the  cornerstone  of 
the  government,  it  is  the  whole  blessed  foundation.  If 
then  the  American  home  is  being  threatened  with  destruc- 
tion because  the  American  man  is  not  doing  his  share, 
something  more  is  happening — the  foundations  of  the  Gov- 
ernment itself  are  being  broken  up,  and  the  danger  that 
faces  us  is  a  danger  of  a  very  real  sort. 

The  drunkard  is  a  defective.  Why  do  they  say  that?  If 
they  are  trying  to  tell  you  that  he  is  a  defective  or  he 
would  not  be  a  drunkard,  then  that  means  that  they  take 
the  poor  defectives  of  this  world  and  give  them  something 
that  makes  them  more  defective,  and  you  and  I  have  a 
right  to  call  the  organization  or  the  individual  that  would 
do  that  a  coward.  And  another  thing,  you  are  going  deep 
into  your  pockets  to  support  organizations  and  charities 
for  the  amelioration  of  suffering  defectives.  You  are  sup- 
porting schools  for  the  blind  and  deaf,  and  for  the  feeble- 
minded, and  hospitals  for  the  sick,  because  you  are  a  great, 
big,  generous-hearted  people  and  want  to  help  the  poor 
fellow  who  is  a  defective.  But  here  is  a  so-called  "busi- 
ness" that  takes  the  defective  (they  boast  that  he  is  a  de- 
fective) and  gives  him  something  to  make  him  more  de- 
fective. 

If  they  are  trying  to  say  that  God  made  these  people  de- 
fective, look  you,  read  in  this  Book:  "Made  in  the  image 
of  God."  That  does  not  sound  like  a  defective.  "Just  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels."  "Joint  heirs  with  Jesus 
Christ."  "Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be."  God's  highest 
creation,  and  yet  this  business,  which  the  United  States  of 
America  supports,  of  which  the  United  States  of  America 
is  a  part,  takes  that  image  fresh  from  the  Creator's  hand 

[3921 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  m:,kes  it  into  a  defective  and  then  boasts  that  he  is  a 
defective. 

I  have  a  notion  to  introduce  to  you  a  father  and  mother 
up  here  in  the  golden  grain  belt.  The  father  fought 
through  the  Civil  War,  and  carries  a  bullet  around  in  his 
body  as  a  reminder.  I  used  to  know  them,  and  if  you  said 
anything  to  this  man  about  his  service  in  the  war,  he  would 
say,  "That  is  nothing.  I  never  did  anything  for  my  coun- 
try. But  mother  and  I  are  doing  something  now,"  and 
he  would  point  to  his  boy.  That  boy  was  his  pride  and 
joy.  "Doing  something  now  for  our  country ;  we're  raising 
a  man,  and  when  America  wants  a  man  she  will  know 
where  to  get  him — right  here  in  the  golden  grain  belt." 
And  let  me  tell  you  that  is  a  right  good  place  to  get  men, 
a  splendid  place  to  raise  men.  So  this  boy  grew  on  up 
through  childhood,  through  the  grade  schools  and  the  high 
school,  and  one  day  the  father  said  to  his  mother,  "Come 
on,  Sarah,,  we  will  put  on  the  finishing  touches.  He  knows 
all  the  high  school  can  teach  him,  and  we  want  him  to  be 
ready  for  anything — maybe  the  White  House  might  want 
him — so  let's  send  him  to  the  university."  And  to  the  uni- 
versity he  went.  Can't  you  see  that  father  and  mother 
working  for  that  boy's  education?  No  side  trips,  no  vaca- 
tions, no  new  gowns  or  bonnets  for  mother — every  dollar 
they  could  save  or  get  their  hands  on  was  put  aside  for 
that  boy's  education,  because  they  were  finishing  a  man  for 
America !  That  is  the  basis  of  the  home,  and  this  audience 
well  knows  that  my  America  needs  just  that  kind  of  men, 
men  that  have  faith  in  Old  Glory,  not  faith  in  the  saloon — 
better  men.  America  does  not  need  defectives;  it  needs 
better  men. 

Look  you,  the  boy  is  ready  to  go  to  school.  Look  at 
him !  Not  a  defect  in  that  family  tree,  not  a  drunkard,  not 
a  criminal,  everybody  all  right.  Four  statesmen  worth 
while,  two  governors,  a  number  of  lawyers  and  preachers, 

[393] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

and  two  literary  men  of  national  reputation.     A  fine  an- 
cestry back  of  that  boy. 

And  the  boy  goes  away  to  a  zvet  university  town.  Every 
ounce  of  blood  in  that  boy's  body  was  as  clean  and  pure  as 
heredity  could  make ;  all  his  surroundings  and  environment 
had  been  right;  he  had  a  Christian  father  and  mother;  the 
best  stuff  on  earth  was  in  that  boy.  And  he  goes  to  a  zvet 
university  town.  It  is  full  of  saloons.  There  are  five 
saloons  in  that  town  which  are  nm  for  the  "benefit"  of 
the  college  men,  they  are  called  "college  saloons,"  "college 
men's  clubs."  Can  you  not  see  them  making  everything 
attractive  for  this  boy — and  others  just  like  him?  Can 
you  not  hear  them  saying,  if  the  boy  does  not  come  as 
regularly  as  they  wish,  "We  missed  you  for  several  days. 
We  can't  keep  up  this  place  unless  you  support  it."  And 
so  the  boy  goes,  and  bad  reports  come  home  the  first  yeai. 
His  father  came  up  to  talk  to  him,  and  the  boy  did  better 
for  a  few  days.  But  the  second  year  was  worse,  and  the 
third  year  was  worse  yet,  and  the  fourth — well  he  just  got 
through  by  the  skin  of  his  teeth.  This  part  of  the  story 
was  told  me  by  Wilbur  Wright.  He  said  the  boy  came  home 
from  college,  came  into  the  living  room,  and  the  father 
rose  to  greet  him ;  but  he  sank  back  in  his  chair,  horrified. 
W^hat  was  the  matter?  The  boy  was  drunk,  so  drunk  he 
staggered — staggered  into  his  father's  presence  with  his 
diploma  in  his  hand.  Can  you  think  what  that  meant  to 
that  father?  After  all  his  work  and  planning  and  his 
high  hopes  of  training  up  a  man  for  Old  Glory,  then  to  get 
just  a  good-for-nothing  drunkard  after  four  years.  It  took 
just  four  years  for  the  university  to  ruin  him, — that  splen- 
did American  lad, — to  turn  him  into  a  defective.  My  breth- 
ren that  is  why  we  stand  on  this  platform  and  plead  for 
Nation-wide  prohibition.  What  though  you  may  live  in 
dry  territory — you  send  your  boy  out  into  wet  territory 

[394] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  be  educated,  and  at  the  end  of  four  years  you  get  back 
a  drunken  debauchee. 

That  old  man  rose  from  his  chair,  shut  his  hands  to- 
gether, and  said:  "Go!  Go!  I  tell  you!  My  country  has 
no  use  for  drunkards !"  Do  not  call  him  an  unnatural 
father.  He  loved  his  country  and  his  flag,  but  he  could 
not  stand  the  disgrace,  so  he  took  even  his  name  away 
from  the  boy.  He  bought  him  a  ticket  in  another  name 
and  sent  him  to  Paris,  and  that  is  where  I  saw  him,  stag- 
gering up  and  down  the  streets  of  Paris,  not  able  to  earn 
his  bread.  I  was  interested  in  the  boy,  and  I  tried  to  keep 
track  of  him,  but  my  fellow  students  would  say  to  me, 
"We'll  get  your  American  brother  some  day,"  for  France 
gives  the  dead  bodies  of  paupers  to  the  La  Grande  clinic. 
And  I  will  never  forget  the  morning  when  I  walked  into 
that  clinic,  and  there  lay  the  haggard,  dead  body  of  that 
American  university  graduate.  And  Oh,  how  I  plead  for 
that  body.  I  told  them  I  knew  his  father  and  mother ; 
I  wanted  to  bury  him  so  that  I  might  tell  them  where 
we  had  laid  him ;  I  wanted  to  say  a  prayer  over  him  and 
wrap  the  flag  around  him.  But  they  pushed  me  away  and 
said,  "No."  Besides,  there  was  something  there  they 
wanted  to  see — something  in  his  brain  cells.  So  they  took 
his  brain  out  and  separated  it  into  single  cells  that  they 
might  see  the  effect  of  alcohol. 

The  first  effect  of  alcohol  on  the  human  brain  is  to  stimu- 
late the  conductors  to  the  brain.  Perhaps  I  had  better  in 
a  hurried  way  tell  you  something  of  the  brain.  It  looks 
just  like  my  hand — only  more  so — for  the  brain  cells  are 
so  small  that  eight  hundred  of  them  could  be  put  on  a 
ten-cent  piece.  Going  out  from  the  body  of  the  brain  are 
branches  like  the  branches  of  a  tree,  but  here  in  the  body 
of  the  brain  the  mental  records  are  kept,  like  Victrola 
records.  You  write  them  two  by  two  there.  But  you 
need  not  have  any  fear  that  you  may   write  up  all  the 

[395] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

blanks  in  your  head.  But  one  thing  is  necessary,  or  the 
brain  is  as  useless  as  a  Victrola  record  in  a  book.  You 
must  put  that  record  in  touch  with  the  Victrola,  you 
must  set  that  needle  down  on  the  record,  and  then  you 
hear  Schumann-Heink  and  all  the  great  ones.  So  it  is 
with  the  brain.  It  must  be  kept  in  touch  with  these  con- 
ductors that  stretch  up  here;  they  must  come  together, 
and  the  current  flows  exactly  as  your  voice  over  the  tele- 
phone. The  first  effect  of  alcohol  is  to  make  these  con- 
ductors move  more  rapidly.  They  used  to  teach  us  to  use 
alcohol  as  a  brain  stimulant.  But  that  does  not  tell  the 
whole  story.  They  do  move  more  rapidly;  a  man  under 
alcohol  thinks  fast,  but  he  does  not  control  his  thoughts, 
and  they  finally  lead  him  to  murder  and  to  crimes  of  all 
kinds.  And  the  judge  says,  "He  is  a  defective, — made  so 
through  drink, — but  drunkenness  is  no  defense  for  crime." 

The  second  effect  is  inflammation,  and  following  in- 
flammation these  conductors  become  sclerosed,  and  they 
snap  off  exactly  as  the  dead  branches  of  a  tree.  Coming 
back  to  that  dead  boy,  we  found  cell  after  cell  in  that 
dead  boy's  brain  with  every  single  conductor  broken  off. 
What  did  it  matter  to  him  or  to  the  world  that  his  mental 
records  had  been  written  during  a  four  year  university 
course?  He  could  not  earn  his  living.  He  begged  for 
his  daily  bread,  for  he  did  not  have  sense  enough  to  earn 
it.  What  did  the  four  years  at  the  university  amount  to? 
The  result  was  a  defective  brain — and  this  dead  boy  in  the 
La  Grande  clinic. 

If  that  was  the  only  way  alcohol  makes  a  man  defective, 
that  would  be  enough.  But  sixty-two  per  cent,  of  Bright's 
disease  is  caused  by  alcohol;  forty  per  cent,  of  the  arterio 
sclerosis,  and  eighty-two  per  cent,  of  cancer  of  the  stomach; 
forty  per  cent,  of  apoplexy.  These  are  incurable  dis- 
eases. Then  I  would  have  this  audience  know  that  the 
middle-aged  man   is   the   man   worth   while.     You   do   not 

[396] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

vv'ant  a  doctor  just  out  of  college.  What  he  thinks  he 
knows  when  he  is  just  out  of  college!  I  know,  because 
that  is  the  way  I  felt.  (Laughter).  What  I  thought  I 
knew  then  is  only  equalled  by  the  much  I  know  I  do  not 
know  now.  But  we  want  the  man  with  education  plus 
experience.  And  you  do  not  want  a  lawyer  just  out  of 
law  school;  you  want  a  lawyer  that  has  tried  a  case  just 
like  yours.  Education  plus  experience !  The  middle-aged 
man  is  the  man  worth  while.  Last  year  in  Amercia  we 
lost  fifty-six  thousand  more  middle-aged  men  than  ever 
before,  and  they  died  of  heart  disease,  apoplexy  and 
Bright's  disease.  (Heart  disease  it  is  thought  often  calls 
for  alcohol.)  Is  it  worth  while?  Defective  all  the  way 
round.  But  yet  I  believe  if  men  knew— "My  people  perish 
for  lack  of  knowledge."  I  believe  if  men  knew  the  terrible 
danger  they  would  let  alcohol  alone.  Oh,  I  cannot  under- 
stand men!  (Laughter).  Now  will  you  notice  these 
blessed  men  folk — every  one  of  you  can  go  to  sleep,  this 
is  for  the  women — you  women  have  been  looking  up  to 
these  great,  big  six-footers  of  yours,  thinking  they  had  no 
limitations,  that  they  just  knew  it  all.  But  will  you  notice 
this — these  men,  with  all  their  power,  have  voted  in  man- 
traps, and  then  they  walk  straight  into  the  man-traps,  and 
the  fellows  who  run  the  man-traps  openly  boast  that  the 
finished  product  of  the  saloon  is  a  defective— and  then 
these  men  go  and  vote  in  more  man-traps,  and  walk  into 
them  as  they  did  the  others. 

Now  you  women,  I  am  talking  to  you.  Let  me  read  you 
what  the  Bible  says  about  you.  It  says  that  the  Lord 
gave  man  a  helpmeet.  The  Lord  never  would  have  given 
him  a  helpmeet  in  the  world  if  he  had  not  needed  it.  He 
never  gave  us  any.  (Laughter).  If  God  called  us  help- 
meets of  these  great,  big,  splendid  men,  then  it  is  time  we 
measured  up  to  our  high  calling.  If  there  is  a  woman  in 
this  room  who  is  not  willing  to  do  her  duty  for  Nation-wide 

[397] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

prohibition;  if  there  is  a  woman  in  this  room  who  is  not 
wilhng  to  take  the  ballot,  if  need  be,  to  put  the  saloon  out 
of  business,  out  of  the  way  of  these  poor  men  with  their 
limitations,  then  I  say  you  have  not  lived  up  to  your  high 
calling.  (Applause).  This  is  a  woman's  fight  as  well  as 
a  man's;  it  is  a  woman's  fight  for  the  protection  of  the 
men.  (Applause).  More  seriously,  it  is  a  woman's  fight, 
for  to  her  straight  from  the  hand  of  God  came  man  in  his 
beginnings.  That  blessed  man-child  for  whom  you  almost 
gave  3^our  life — and  you  did  almost  die  to  give  him  life — 
and  then  you  stand  aside  while  the  men,  these  men  with 
their  ballots,  vote  in  the  saloon  to  rob  you  of  your  boy. 
What  are  you  going  to  say  to  God  when  the  roll  is  called? 
He  gave  you  a  spotless  soul.  What  are  you  going  to  say 
when  your  boy  is  not  there  and  your  hands  are  empty?  I 
am  asking  you  women  to  rise  up  and  do  your  duty  now. 
You  have  stood  back  long  enough.  But  if  you  will  not 
take  the  ballot  and  try  thereby  to  get  rid  of  the  saloon, 
then  let  me  take  you  and  go  farther  even  than  the  ballot. 
If  you  do  not  rise  up  and  put  the  saloon  out  of  reach  of 
the  boys,  this  Nation  is  going  to  fail.  The  American  home 
is  ours,  and  it  is  threatened  with  destruction.  That  is  not 
quite  all.  The  American  home  is  that  upon  which  rests 
the  American  government.  Please  notice  that  a  nation 
or  a  country  is  not  great  because  of  its  great  mines, 
minerals  or  money.  It  is  great  only  because  it  has  great 
sons,  and  if  this  American  government  is  ever  to  go  farther 
in  the  years  that  are  to  come,  and  preserve  peace  for  the 
world,  it  will  be  because  the  American  home  has  been  pre- 
served, a  safe  place  for  the  American  man  to  grow  up  to 
the  splendor  of  his  mature  manhood.  Then  look  you,  here 
I  am  pleading  not  only  for  the  American  man,  but  the 
American  government,  and  I  am  begging  you  women  to 
measure  up  to  your  high  responsibility.  If  you  have 
shirked,  then  shirk  no  longer.     You  take  the  ballot  if  you 

[398] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

must,  and  use  it  as  God  directs  you — use  it  for  the  protec- 
tion of  your  home.  The  brewers  say  the  truth — the 
drunkard  is  a  defective, — your  defective. 

Now  let  me  tell  you  about  a  little  instrument  that  Kraep- 
elin,  of  Munich,  invented.  It  is  called  the  ergograph, 
and  is  meant  to  measure  the  work  done  by  your  muscles. 
Let  me  strap  this  ergograph  around  your  stomach  muscles, 
and  then  put  two  thousand  calories  of  bread  and  butter  into 
your  stomach.  Then  come  on  out  and  follow  the  plow, 
and  let  me  prove  to  you  that  you  are  one  hundred  and 
twenty  per  cent,  a  man.  You  are  twenty  per  cent,  better 
with  the  two  thousand  calories  of  bread  and  butter  in  your 
stomach ;  you  are  twenty  per  cent,  more  a  man  than  with- 
out it ;  you  are  a  man  plus  the  bread  and  butter.  Now, 
you  may  take  three  drinks  of  whisky  instead  of  the  bread 
and  butter.  Then  go  out  and  follow  the  plow  on  three 
drinks  of  whisky,  ergograph  still  in  place.  Now  do  you 
know  what  happens?  You  are  taking  twenty-three  per 
cent,  right  out  of  yourself ;  instead  of  being  one  hundred 
per  cent,  plus,  you  are  one  hundred  per  cent,  minus  twenty- 
three  per  cent.,  or  seventy-seven  per  cent,  of  a  man  with 
the  whisky  inside.  I  did  not  say  that.  Kraepelin  said 
it.  I  thought  I  would  go  over  and  see  his  work,  but  there 
were  some  reasons  that  I  thought  thoroughly  good  for 
not  going  this  year.  But,  you  say,  I  do  not  live  out  in 
the  country,  I  make  my  living  as  a  bookkeeper.  All  right, 
let  me  put  this  little  instrument  on  your  arm  and  prove 
to  you  that  you  are  seventeen  per  cent,  better  with  the 
bread  and  butter  inside  of  you.  You  are  one  hundred  and 
seventeen  per  cent,  a  bookkeeper.  You  raise  your  efifi- 
ciency  by  what  you  put  inside.  Now,  you  may  take  one 
single  glass  of  beer,  spread  out  your  bookkeeping  work, 
have  this  little  instrument  on  your  arm,  and  you  will  find 
you   have    cashed    in    seven    per    cent,    of   yourself    for    that 

[399] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

single  glass  of  beer — you  have  lowered  your  efficiency  that 
much. 

The  Czar  of  all  the  Russias  said:  "Kill  them,  the  Ger- 
mans !  But  you  are  only  three-fourths  men.  You  were 
whipped  once  by  the  Japanese,  you  must  be  whole  men 
to  fight  the  Germans,  and  vodka  must  go !"  And  my  friend 
Slabinski  says  you  could  see  the  difference  in  the  peasantry 
in  exactly  two  weeks.  Russia  never  in  all  her  drunken 
life  had  saved  more  than  fifteen  millions  a  year,  but  when 
prohibition  went  into  effect  her  manhood  was  so  much 
more  efficient  that  in  the  midst  of  the  worst  war  Russia 
ever  had  any  part  in,  she  was  able  in  one  month  to  save 
thirty  millions, — twice  as  much  in  one  month  when  she 
was  sober  as  in  one  whole  year  when  she  was  drunk ! 
(Applause).  If  Russia  needed  four-fourths  men  to  carry 
on  the  war  with  my  Germany,  then,  my  America,  what 
part  of  manhood  is  necessary  to  preserve  peace  in  this  old 
United  States  of  ours?  If  we  need  four- fourths  men  to 
go  to  the  forefront  of  battle,  what  do  we  need  for  the 
heroic  battles  of  peace?     Should  we  not  have  whole  men? 

The  time  is  short,  and  there  are  many  things  to  be  said ; 
but  I  am  remembering  that  we  have  been  deceived  by 
people  who  have  insisted  that  alcohol  was  better  than  food. 
Atwater  used  to  think  that.  But  did  you  know  he  had 
gone  mad?  We  were  deceived  for  a  long  time  by  the 
belief  that  it  was  necessary  as  medicine.  I  am  proud  of 
my  profession,  for  they  have  found  that  alcohol  is  not 
necessary  as  medicine,  has  no  value  as  food,  and  is  a  habit- 
forming  drug.  The  medical  institution  with  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  be  connected  is  forty-eight  years  old.  It 
has  an  international  reputation  for  curing  incurables, — 
people  who  go  there  as  a  last  resort.  They  try  everything 
else,  then  they  go  there.  I  went  there  on  a  stretcher  my- 
self, with  my  will  made — never  expected  to  see  home  again, 
supposed  of  course  I  was  dying.     I  did  not  die,  thank  you. 

[400] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

This  institution  now  treats  a  daily  average  of  one  thousand 
patients,  and  it  knows  that  alcohol  is  not  necessary  as 
medicine,  so  they  do  not  use  it.  In  forty-eight  years  it 
has  never  used  one  single  ounce  of  alcohol  as  medicine. 
(Applause).  Why  not?  Because  it  is  not  necessary  and 
does  more  harm  than  good. 

Not  long  ago  the  Interstate  Medical  Society  met  in 
the  Southland,  and  this  great  body  of  medical  men  in  coun- 
cil assembled  passed  a  resolution,  and  every  member  signed 
it,  to  the  effect  that  alcohol  is  not  necessary  as  a  medicine, 
that  it  is  harmful  to  the  human  body,  and  that  therefore 
we,  the  undersigned  medical  society,  will  not  use  it  in  our 
practice.     It  is  a  habit-forming  drug. 

Look  me  straight  in  the  eye  and  tell  me,  did  you  ever 
spike  the  punch?  Then  God  forgive  you,  if  He  can,  for 
very  few  drunkards  go  to  a  saloon  for  the  first  drink ;  they 
get  a  taste  of  it  some  other  place,  and  then  another  taste, 
and  finally  they  do  not  care  much  where  they  get  it  so 
they  get  it.  Have  any  of  you  women  taken  patent  medi- 
cine? The  worst  case  of  delirium  tremens  I  ever  treated 
was  a  Peruna  drunk.  Alcohol  is  a  habit-forming  drug,  and 
whether  the  victim  gets  the  first  taste  at  a  social  function 
or  in  patent  medicine,  it  is  too  often  an  easy  way  from 
there  to  the  saloon. 

Turn  back  with  me  and  let  me  give  you  an  instance  out 
of  my  own  life — back  there  in  the  years  when  my  profes- 
sion believed  in  that  falsehood  that  alcohol  is  necessary  as 
a  medicine.  We  were  taught  in  the  great  university  from 
which  I  graduated  that  we  should  use  alcohol  in  the  crisis 
of  disease.  Back  there  I  had  a  chum,  a  dainty  little  woman, 
not  as  large  as  I,  but  frail.  She  came  to  Kansas  City,  and 
there  she  married  and  became  the  mother  of  a  boy.  Let 
me  introduce  you  to  the  father  of  that  boy.  A  Christian 
lawyer,  superintendent  of  a  Sunday  school, — the  coming 
man  we  called  him.     The  community  was  already  begin- 

[401] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

ning  to  consult  him  on  important  things,  and  they  were 
talking  of  him   for  Governor.     It  was  then  that  he  was 
suddenly  taken  with  typhoid  fever,  and  naturally  I   was 
called,  for  I  was  both  physician  and  friend.     I  was  there 
in  that  room  myself  with  a  bottle  of  so-called  "best"  brandy 
on  the  table,  when  the  twenty-first  day  came,  and  we  gave 
it  to  him.     Can  you  imagine  my  feelings  when  the  nurse 
told  me  that  he  had  reached  for  it  in  the  night,  although 
he  did  not  know  it  was  there ;  but  he  answered  the  call  fOr 
more,  for  that  stuff  calls  for  more.     Three  weeks  after  I 
dismissed  him  as  cured,  he  came  home  in  a  cab,  drunk. 
That  was  repeated  again  and  again  and  again.     Please  re- 
member that  he  was  a  Christian  gentleman,   headed   for 
the  governorship  of  his  State.     Over  and  over  he  did  that 
thing,  until  two  years  had  passed.     His  wife  walked  into 
my  office  one  morning,  and  I  will  never  forget  the  look  on 
that  beautiful  face,  the  cheeks  sunken,  the  dreadful  pallor ! 
She  had  her  boy  with  her,  and  she  said,  "We  must  go. 
George   has    threatened   to   kill    baby."     She    did    go,    for 
safety's   sake,   and  that   meant   a   divorce.     Another  year 
passed,  and  just  three  years   from  the   time   I   dismissed 
him  we  made  a  narrow  bed  out  there  in  the  cemetery  and 
laid  in  it  that  poor,  dead  defective.    Hear  me  while  I  tell  you 
that  all  through  the  haunting  years  that  lie  between  the 
sound  of  the  sod  as  it  fell  on  that  grave  and  this  day,  I 
have  known  what  I  am.     I  know  that  although  that  what 
I  did  was  done  innocently  and  in  ignorance,  I  know  that 
I  am  a  murderer.     I  killed  that  little  boy's  father.     I  took 
away    from    him    the    guardianship    of   a    great    Christian 
parent,  left  him  to  go  on  through  life  without  even  the 
memory  of  a  Christian  father,  but  labeled  as  a  drunkard's 
son.     I  murdered  my  chum's  husband,  left  her  to  fight  her 
way  as  best  she  could.     She  stood  it  for  about  six  years, 
and  then  her  heart  broke,  and  we   made   another  grave 
in    the   cemetery,    and    I    became    a    double    murderer.     I 

[402] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

robbed  the  State  of  a  citizen,  true  and  straight  and  honest ; 
I  robbed  the  old  flag  of  a  devoted  follower;  I  robbed  the 
throne  of  God  of  a  soul  for  whom  my  Jesus  died,  for  that 
man,  because  of  the  alcohol  I  administered  to  him  as  medi- 
cine, became  a  defective,  a  drunkard — drink  killed  him! 

What  are  you  going  to  do  about  the  saloons  in  Indiana? 
Are  you  going  to  permit  a  business  that  destroys  the  bodies 
of  men  and  their  souls  as  well?     If  you  could  only  feel 
what  I  do,  if  you  could  only  feel  that  you  will  have  to 
answer  at  the  bar  of  Almighty  God,  you  would  right  now 
put  the  saloon  out  of  the  State  of  Indiana  and  out  of  the 
United  States  of  America!     Let  me  say  to  you  that  this  is 
a   serious  proposition.     There  are   enough  people   in  this 
room   right  now  to  put  the   saloon  out   of  the   State   of 
Indiana.     (Applause).     Listen  to  me !     Do  not  dare  to  ap- 
plaud with  your  hands  unless  you  assent  with  your  mind 
and  are  able  and  willing  to  work  to  give  life  to  your  con- 
viction.    I  have  reminded  you  women  that  you  are  help- 
meets to  these  strong  men,  but  you  men  have  not  done  all 
you  could.     I  do  not  know  what  God  is  going  to  ask  you 
to  do,  but  let  me  ask  this  audience  now  to  seriously  con- 
sider what  you,  in  compHcity  with  the  American  saloon, 
are  doing.     And  then  let  me  beg  of  you,  in  the  name  of 
the  American  home,  in  the  name  of  the  flag,  and  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  do  your  duty  and  do  it  now, 
for  every  twenty-four  hours  that  the  saloon  exists  men  are 
being  ground  to  pulp,  homes  are  broken  up,  and  the  coun- 
try is  menaced.     Do  your  part.     This  is  not  Flying  Squad- 
ron business;  it  is  not  your  business;  it  is  our  business, 
and  all  together,  and  hand-in-hand,  with  the  great  I  Am, 
we  will  march  to  victory.     The  American  saloon  is   not 
entrenched  behind  the   Bible,  but  behind  greed  and  mo- 
nopoly, and  it  is  safeguarded  by  your  silence  and  mine.     It 
is  time  we  are  doing  something.     We  are  out  on  the  firing 
Hne  and  we  praise  God  for  the  privilege.     You  are  at  home, 

[403] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

safe,  comfortable  and  happy.     Is  there  anything  you  can 
do?     I  know  of  one  thing.     If  the  Flying  Squadron  had  a 
fund  big  enough  for  a  Nation-wide  campaign  for  prohibi- 
tion we  would  fill  all  the  halls  as  well  as  the  churches  in 
the  United  States,  we  would  placard  the  great  bill  boards 
we   would   have   films    for  the   movies.     There   are   many 
things  we  could  do.     Here  you  are  at  home.     It  is  hard 
fighting,  even  though  you  are  backing  us  with  your  prayers 
Now  is  coming  your  time  to  show  what  you  will  do      If 
all  the  women  in  the  United  States  who  believe  in  Nation- 
wide prohibition  would,  for  one  single  day,  give  twenty- 
five  pennies,  no  nickels  or  dollars,  and  put  it  into  the  fund 
we  would  have  a  fund  big  enough  to  sweep  this  country 
dry.     (Applause).     I   know  that   would   be   true   if   every 
other  man  in  this  United  States  would  give  one  day's  in- 
come—what is  one  day  compared  to  eternity  and  the  death 
of  a  soul  you  might  save?     If  for  this  work  every  other 
man  in  America  would  give  his  income  for  one  day    we 
would  have  a  fund  that  would  sweep  the  Nation  dry    'fiut 
you  have  to  answer  for  yourselves.     We  will  give  you  a 
chance  to  help.     We  are  not  asking  for  help,  but  the  old 
flag  calls  for  help,  the  mothers  of  the  land  ask  for  help 
the  babies  ask  for  help.     Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  asking  you 
to  help  Him  now! 

Let  everybody  take  an  envelope  and  pass  them  as  fast 
as  you  can.  Here  is  a  place  on  the  envelope  for  your 
name.  This  is,  to  my  way  of  thinking,  the  holiest  hour 
ot  this  meeting,  for  this  is  the  time  when  you  answer 
not  to  me,  but  to  God  Almighty-registering  up  there  what 
you  are  willing  to  do.  Put  into  this  contribution  as  lar-e 
a  sum  as  you  can  roll  up  in  the  next  thirty  days  Take 
thirty  days.  Write  your  name  here,  and  then  the  largest 
sum  of  money  you  can  contribute  to  the  campaign  for 
Nation-wide  prohibition,  the  sum  to  be  paid  at  the  end  of 
thirty  days.     There  are  some  in  this  room  who  could  give 

[404] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

one  hundred  dollars.  Suppose  that  for  one  hundred  dol- 
lars you  saved  that  boy  from  perdition?  Suppose  you 
close  one  saloon?  Suppose  you  saved  your  home  from 
wreckage?  Would  it  be  worth  it?  Some  will  give  one 
hundred  dollars,  some  fifty  dollars,  and  reckon  it  worth 
while.  Others  will  give  twenty-five  dollars,  ten  dollars, 
and  five  dollars.  Some  cannot  pay  as  much  as  that,  but 
eager  to  help  the  cause,  will  promise  one  dollar.  If  you 
did  not  bring  your  pocketbook,  write  a  check  for  the  larg- 
est sum  you  can  give.  Then  as  the  men  come  for  your 
envelopes  drop  them  into  the  pans,  and  with  them  drop  as 
much  loose  change  as  you  brought  with  you.  Now  will 
the  audience  bow  their  heads. 

Reverently,  Oh  God,  our  Father,  we  unitedly  pray  that 
Thy  kingdom  may  come,  that  Thy  holy,  blessed  will  be  done 
in  our  dear  United  States  of  America  as  it  is  done  up  there 
in  Heaven.  Oh  God,  our  Father,  make  us  strong,  make  us 
better,  make  us  to  do  our  duty.  God  help  us  right  now. 
Thou  art  our  Father,  and  from  Thee  must  come  all  the  power, 
and  we  pray  that  Thou  wilt  give  us  courage  under  Thy 
leadership  to  go  forward  to  victory  over  the  grogshop. 
Make  us  to  understand  that  united  with  Thee  we  can  over- 
come. Bless  this  campaign  fund,  Oh  God,  that  we  are  raising 
for  Thee.  Wilt  Thou  multiply  the  money  as  the  loaves  and 
fishes  by  the  sea.  Bless  every  worker,  and  look  in  mercy 
on  the  defective,  on  the  men  who  are  already  on  the  down- 
ward way.  God  help  us  now,  and  Thy  name  shall  have  the 
glory  and  the  honor,  now  and  at  the  last !   Amen ! 

If  you  promised  yesterday  and  want  to  pay  today,  write 
the  words  "previous  pledge"  across  the  envelope.  If  you 
want  to  give  more  today,  write  the  words  "additional 
pledge"  across  the  envelope.  And  now  will  the  ushers  come 
quickly  forward  and  take  the  contrioution,  but  wait  upon 
the  audience  deliberately.  Remember,  if  you  pay  as  much 
as  a  dollar,  either  in  promise  or  cash,  you  will  receive  a 

[405] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

certificate  which  will  make  you  a  member  of  the  Flying 
Squadron.  It  will  not  be  of  much  use  to  you,  but  it  will 
be  to  your  children  when  the  fight  is  over  and  the  Nation 
is  dry.  Keep  in  mind  that  you  are  helping  in  the  defense 
of  your  country — the  salvation  of  other  men. 

I  thank  you  for  your  partnership  in  this  great  cause,  and 
for  your  attention  to  me.  And  now  let  me  say  that  you 
are  to  hear  a  real  speaker.  Dr.  Ira  Landrith  has  been  fight- 
ing for  prohibition  since  he  was  six  years  old,  and  he  knows 
every  phase  of  it — local  option.  State-wide,  and  now 
Nation-wide  prohibition.  He  is  a  veteran ;  he  can  tell  you 
exactly  how  you  can  make  Indiana  dry,  and  I  hope  he  is 
going  to  do  it.  You  will  be  cheating  yourselves  if  you  do 
not  stay  to  hear  him.  (Applause.) 


[406] 


WOMAN'S  BUSINESS— MAN-RAISING. 

President  Thomas  C.  Howe,  of  Butler  College, 
introduced  Dr.  Geisel  in  these  words  :  "I  am  very- 
happy  to  present  Dr.  Geisel.  She  is  what  her  name 
in  German  indicates,  'a  scourge'  against  all  manner 
of  evil." 

AND  I  would  to  God  it  might  be  that  this  name  of 
mine,  hberally  translated,  might  be  made  a  genuine 
scourge  to  the  liquor  traffic,  for  I  would  for  the 
sake  of  my  sisters  drive  alcohol  from  all  the  world  if  I 
could. 

I  cannot  talk  about  this  question  from  the  political  side — 
not  at  all.  I  do  not  know  politics.  I  am  going  to  learn. 
I  cannot  talk  about  it  from  the  financial  side,  so  tonight 
I  want  to  talk  to  you  entirely  from  the  woman's  standpoint, 
if  you  please.  Let  me  talk  business  with  you,  just  plain 
business.  Hear  me  friends !  You  are  being  told  all  over 
this  great  United  States  of  America  that  when  these 
fanatical  prohibitionists  win  out,  business  will  suffer.  But 
I  am  facing  you  as  squarely  as  I  know  how  to  say  to  you 
that  the  greatest  business  in  all  the  big,  wide  world  is 
suffering  almost  unto  death,  not  because  of  prohibition,  but 
because  of  the  liquor  traffic.  What  business?  I  think  I  can 
tell  you  better  by  asking  you  to  come  with  me  to  a  stock- 
raisers'  convention.  I  attended  one  in  Buffalo.  There  were 
three  friends  of  mine  at  that  convention — Wilbur  Wright 
was  there,  craning  his  neck  to  see  one  of  his  "birds"  up 
there  in  the  air;  quite  near  stood  Luther  Burbank,  shaping 
a  whistle  out  of  a  catalpa  twig,  and  the  third  man  stood 
looking  with  the  greatest  interest  into  a  little  enclosure  in 
which  was  a  hog.  The  hog  weighed  one  thousand  pounds, 
and  he  had  raised  it,  you  know.  He  stood  there  admiring 
the  hog,  and  then  he  came  over  to  where  Wilbur  Wright 
and  Burbank  and  I  were  standing,  and  said  to  me :  "Just 
see  what  we   men   folk   are  doing.    Just   look   at   Wilbur 

[407] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Wright  with  his  wonderful  flying  machine,  and  see  what 
Burbank  has  done  with  the  catalpas, — and  say,  have  you 
seen  my  hog?"  And  then  he  said,  wrinkHng  his  face  in  his 
earnestness,  "Say,  Carolyn,  what  is  the  matter  with  you 
wo'men  folk,  any  way?  You  have  sort  of  fallen  down  on 
your  job,  hav'nt  you?"  I  waited  until  I  could  pull  myself 
together  and  then  I  said:  "My  friend,  it  seems  to  me  to  be 
distinctly  more  worth  while  to  my  country  and  its  flag 
that  somebody  should  know  how  to  raise  the  man  who 
could  raise  that  hog  than  to  raise  the  hog."     (Applause.) 

Let  there  be  no  uncertain  sound  so  far  as  this  is  con- 
cerned, I  am  a  suffragist.  But  in  spite  of  suffrage,  in  spite 
of  the  freedom  granted  to  the  women  of  this  country,  (we 
may  say  anything  we  choose,  we  may  do  just  as  we  please), 
but  in  spite  of  the  freedom  of  the  twentieth  century,  in  spite 
of  suffrage, — I  am  old  fashioned,  I  guess, — I  am  harking 
back  through  all  the  ages  and  hearing  Him,  the  Master  of 
all  Life,  calling  us,  the  womanhood  of  the  world,  calling 
us  to  our  business,  calling  us  to  partnership  with  Himself, 
calling  us  to  the  business  of  man-raising.  It  is  woman's 
business  to  raise  men — and  it  is  an  awful  job.  (Laughter.) 
It  takes  at  least  two  women  to  raise  one  good  man.  It  takes 
his  mother  twenty-one  straight  years  of  her  life,  and  that 
is  a  long  time  to  put  on  one  piece  of  business ;  then  she 
turns  that  unfinished  piece  over  to  another  woman,  his 
wife-— sometimes  it  takes  more  than  one  wife — (Laughter) 
but  it  is  worth  it.  Little  mother,  you  are  not  raising  live- 
stock. It  were  honor  enough  and  privilege  enough  and  a 
task  enough  worth  while  if  you  were  raising  men  for  that 
old  flag;  but  that  is  not  all  you  are  doing.  We  need  in  this 
United  States  of  America,  in  these  great,  perilous,  awful 
times,  we  need  better  men  under  that  old  flag,  and  it  would 
be  worth  your  while  to  give  twenty-one  years  of  your  time 
to  raise  a  man  who  is  strong  enough,  true  enough,  pure 
and  noble   enough   to  defend  the   old   flag  tonight.     (Ap- 

[408] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

plause.)  That  is  not  all  your  work,  splendid  as  that  is,  worth 
while  as  that  would  be — that  is  not  all  you  are  doing.  Hear 
me  while  I  open  this  book  and  read  God  Almighty's  descrip- 
tion of  your  son.  "Made  in  the  image  of  God," — God  the 
Father,  God  the  Son,  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  That  boy,  made 
in  the  image  of  God,  is  triune  in  his  nature  ;  he  is  physical, 
mental  and  spiritual,  and  that  third  part  of  him  is  immortal. 
You  are  raising  sons  for  the  country  beyond  the  blue. 
Listen  while  I  read  again :  "Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons 
of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be,  but  we 
know  that  when  we  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like  Him." 
So,  little  mother,  here  you  are  raising  men  to  people  the 
country  that  is  eternal,  raising  sons  for  the  Living  God. 
Is  it  worth  while?  No  greater  business  in  all  the  world; 
no  task  more  eminently  worth  while,  than  this  womanhood 
business  of  man-raising. 

But  something  has  gone  wrong  with  our  business ;  we 
are  not  raising  as  good  men  as  our  mothers  did,  and  we 
are  beginning  to  ask,  if  we  are  not  raising  as  good  men 
nor  as  many  of  them  as  did  our  mothers, — what  is  the 
matter?  I  attended  a  race  degeneracy  convention  a  year 
ago,  and  we  said,  "Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  our  busi- 
ness? Why  can  we  not  turn  out  from  the  American  home 
men  as  strong  and  splendid  as  were  our  own  fathers  ?"  The 
answer  came,  "Because  America  is  not  furnishing  sound 
sires  for  sound  sons."  Again  let  me  read:  "The  sins  of  the 
fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation."  And  the  stockraisers  have  discovered  that 
they  cannot  raise  sound  swine  without  sound  sires.  Mother- 
hood at  last  has  come  to  recognize  that  the  child  is  the 
product  both  of  his  inheritance  and  his  environment,  and 
science  has  proven  that  the  man  who  fills  himself  with 
alcohol  receives  upon  himself,  upon  his  body,  upon  his 
mind ;  yea,  upon  his  very  soul,  scars  which  are  irradicable, 
and   he   transmits    these    scars    to   his    unborn   babe.     The 

[409] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

laws  of  heredity  are  absolutely  inexorable ;  you  cannot 
escape  them.  You  are  what  your  father  was,  and  the  man 
who  scars  himself  by  visiting  America's  licensed  saloon, 
scars  also  his  unborn  babe.  Did  you  think  a  man  paid 
for  his  glass  of  beer  when  he  put  the  nickel  upon  the 
counter?  He  does  not  pay,  his  baby  pays;  that  is  who 
pays  for  it. 

Let  me  quote  you  from  my  Germany — Germany,  who 
has  given  to  the  world  more  men  of  science  than  any  other 
country.  Listen  to  my  Germany,  who  has  the  trick  of 
getting  hold  of  an  idea  and  staying  with  it  until  it  knows. 
Germany  sent  von  Schaefer  to  Munich  that  Germany 
might  know  just  what  this  beer  drinking  meant  "mit  de 
kinder."  Why?  Because  Munich  drinks  more  beer  than 
any  city  in  the  world, — but  you  need  not  squirm,  you 
American  man  who  does  not  like  to  be  outdone,  for  you 
are  not  much  outdone.  Von  Schaefer  stayed  straight  eight 
years.  He  found  out  what  this  beer  drinking  meant  to  the 
"kinder,"  he  was  ready  to  give  it  to  you  and  to  me ;  he 
had  proven  it  again  and  again.  And  this  is  what  he  found: 
Out  of  every  one  hundred  babies  born  in  beer-drinking 
Munich,  seventy-two  are  unsound.  Will  you  listen  to  that? 
Was  not  life  hard  enough  for  you  when  you  came  into  it 
with  all  your  faculties,  with  no  scars  on  your  body  or  mind 
or  soul, — you  were  born  right?  What  would  it  be  if  you 
had  been  born  with  all  these  scars  on  your  body,  mind  and 
soul?  Listen!  If  there  were  seventy-two  unsound  pigs  out 
of  every  hundred,  that  were  a  dreadful  thing,  and  the  peo- 
ple of  this  country  would  be  doing  something  about  it.  Am 
I  trying  to  say  that  you  love  pigs  better  than  babies  ?  No ! 
From  the  blessed  man  whose  name  I  bear  I  long  ago 
learned  the  untold  tenderness,  power  and  gentleness  of  a 
father's  love.  The  trouble  is  you  have  left  all  this  to  us 
women,  thinking  God  gave  the  babies  to  us,  and  then  you 
tied  our  hands  with  the  licensed  saloon,  and  we  are  unable 

[410] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  do  the  work  God  Almighty  gave  us  to  do.  It  is  your 
business,  it  is  as  much  your  business  as  ours, — then  untie 
our  hands,  give  us  a  chance !  For  seventy-two  unsound 
babies  out  of  every  one  hundred  are  quite  too  many. 

But  then  you  say,  I  don't  know,  maybe  these  little  things 
are  always  unsound.    Men  do  not  understand  babies. 

Then  von  Schaefer  came  to  this  country.  I  had  a  talk 
with  him,  and  he  said,  "I  came  to  America,  and  I  found 
what  you  call  one  'dry  spot.'  "  We  had  then  only  two  "dry 
spots,"  Kansas  and  Maine,  and  he  stopped  in  old  rock- 
ribbed  Maine  to  find  out  what  difference  prohibition  made 
"mit  de  kinder,"  in  Maine,  where  "prohibition  does  not 
prohibit."  You  let  me  tell  you  that  it  will  prohibit  better 
when  we  get  Nation-wide  prohibition,  and  not  when  Maine 
is  dry  and  New  York  and  Massachusetts  are  soaking  wet 
and  run  over  into  would-be  prohibition  Maine !  Of  course 
I  do  not  know  anything  about  politics,  but  that  looks  to  me 
Hke  a  violation  of  States'  rights — but  maybe  it  is  not.  If  a 
State  votes  itself  dry,  and  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  in  partnership  with  wet-goods  folk  takes  revenue 
for  breaking  the  law  of  that  State,  I  would  like  to  know 
what  you  call  that  but  a  violation  of  States'  rights? 

Well,  von  Schaefer  staid  in  Maine  eighteen  months  trying 
the  thing  out, — the  effect  of  prohibition  on  the  baby.  At 
the  end  of  eighteen  months  he  printed  his  report  in  the 
"Volkenschrift"  (1911).  Seventy-one  and  a  half  sound 
babies  out  of  every  one  hundred  born  in  prohibition  Maine! 
Two  and  a  half  times  as  many  sound  babies  in  dry  territory 
as  in  wet.  It  is  a  miracle  that  every  mother  does  not  move 
into  dry  territory  for  the  sake  of  her  babies.  It  is  the 
woman's  business  to  raise  men,  and  if  science  has  proved 
that  dry  territory  will  raise  better  men,  sound  men,  then 
in  mercy's  name  give  to  us  who  are  called  to  this  awful 
task  of  man-raising,  give  to  us  dry  territory,  for  we  have 
discovered  that  you  cannot  raise  sound  men  in  wet  territory 

[411] 


Speeches  oe  The  Flying  Squadron 

any  more  than  you  can  raise  sound  pigs  in  an  unsanitary 
pig-sty.  Environment  has  to  do  with  the  raising  of  men 
as  well  as  inheritance. 

Do  you  know  that  it  costs  the  greatest  sacrifice  this  side 
Calvary,  this  sacrifice  of  motherhood?  She  goes  almost  to 
the  door  of  death,  raps  at  the  door  of  her  own  grave  to 
bring  back  a  man-child,  and  then  for  one  rapturous,  tran- 
scendent moment  she  holds  him  close  to  her  heart  lest  he 
may  slip  back  into  his  little  grave,  for  one  baby  out  of 
CA^ery  two  born  in  America  dies  before  it  reaches  child- 
hood. Why?  Science  says  again,  and  says  it  with  all  def- 
initeness,  that  the  man  who  drags  his  soul  through  the 
shame  of  a  licensed  saloon  takes  out  of  his  unborn  baby 
its  vitality,  literally  cashes  it  in,  and  the  child  is  born 
feeble,  cannot  live,  because  its  father— and  sometimes,  Oh, 
the  shame  of  it,  its  mother— has  cashed  in  its  little  life  for 
alcohol. 

Oh  people,  hear  me !  We  are  losing  our  babies  because  of 
the  recklessness  and  dissipation  on  the  part  of  our  fathers 
and  mothers.    I  am  not  so  rash  as  to  say  that  every  baby 
that  dies  in  America  is  cursed  by  the  saloon.   I  am  here  to 
say  that  science  has  proven  that  among  the  causes  of  race 
degeneracy,  first  of  all  comes  alcohol.    Are  we  a  decaying 
race  ?   If  we  are,  it  means  that  we  are  not  producing  sound 
sons.   If  America  is  passing,  it  means  that  we  are  not  pro- 
ducing sound  sons.    If  we  are  a  degenerate  race,  it  means 
that  we  have  not  produced  sound  sons.  And  remember  that 
the  first  cause  of  degeneracy  is  alcoholism.  Then  let  us  rise 
and  throw  off  this  human  chain  that  hangs  like  a  millstone 
around  this  Nation's  neck.    Do  you  know  that  in  the  fifty 
years  since  my  America  went  into  partnership   with   the 
liquor  traffic  we  have  produced  so  many  feeble-minded  chil- 
dren that  our  feeble-mindedness  has  increased  five  hundred 
per  cent?     Does  it  pay  a  woman  to  go  to  the  doors  of 
death  and  bring  back  a  gibbering  idiot?   He  may  be  strong 

[412] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

in  body,  but  on  the  inside  there  is  a  feeble  mind;  he  should 
be  strong  in  mind  and  body,  standing  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  you.  You  have  cashed  in  his  vitality.  You  spent  ninety 
millions  last  year  to  take  care  of  the  feeble-minded,  and 
that  is  not  all,  for  all  are  not  taken  care  of  by  pubHc 
money.  For  every  two  children  in  the  feeble-minded  institu- 
tions there  is  a  third  in  his  mother's  arms ;  many  a  tender- 
hearted mother  will  not  give  her  one  child  to  be  cared  for 
in  an  institution;  she  cashes  in  her  own  life  to  take  care 
of  it.  Dr.  Zus  says  that  one  out  of  every  two  feeble-minded 
folk  in  the  world  are  feeble-minded  because  of  drink  in  the 
first,  second  or  third  generation.  Think  of  that !  And  you 
ask  the  woman  to  go  on  with  this  man-raising  business, 
when  the  Government  gives  her  no  more  help  than  that; 
when  it  dares  to  take  revenue  and  go  into  partnership  with 
the  traffic  which  destroys  her  business  and  makes  her 
unable  to  raise  sound  men,  but  compels  her  to  raise  gibber- 
ing imbeciles  instead. 

We  have  increased  our  insanity  five  hundred  per  cent, 
in  the  past  fifty  years  in  the  United  States.  Fifty  years 
ago  there  were  not  as  many  crazy  folk  in  the  United 
States  as  there  are  in  the  State  of  Indiana  tonight.  Think 
of  that !  Somebody  who  had  as  much  time  as  sense  sat 
down  and  computed  the  length  of  time  it  would  take  for 
us  all  to  go  crazy,  and  he  discovered  that  in  exactly  two 
hundred  and  sixty  years  we  will  all  be  crazy.  You  are 
increasing  insanity  under  that  old  flag.  Don't  you  dare  to 
laugh  when  I  ask  you,  with  the  possibility  that  in  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  years  every  American  will  be  mad,  what 
will  become  of  my  America,  what  will  become  of  the  flag? 
What  of  it?  One  out  of  every  two  of  all  the  insane  folk 
is  caused  by  drink  in  the  first,  second  and  third  generation. 
The  drunkard  may  not  be  mad,  but  he  bequeaths  it  to  his 
child,  and  in  adolescence  he  goes  mad,  or  perhaps  he  is 
only  erratic  and  queer  and  gets  safely  past  the  madhouse, 

[413] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

but  gives  this  heritage  to  his  offspring — all  as  a  result  of 
your  licensed  saloon.  In  Michigan  they  say  that  three  out 
of  every  four  of  the  crazy  folk  are  crazy  because  of  drink. 
It  is  Herman  Ostrander,  the  famous  alienist  of  the  Middle 
West,  who  says  that  what  is  true  of  Michigan  is  true  of  the 
whole  United  States.  It  cost  ninety-five  millions  last  year 
to  take  care  of  the  crazy  folk.  I  mean  the  crazy  people 
that  you  have  locked  up. 

But  that  is  not  all;  there  is  another  link  in  the  chain,  and 
that  is  extreme  poverty.  ,  I  do  not  know  how  much  that 
costs  you ;  I  do  not  know  how  much  you  are  paying  to 
keep  up  your  poorhouses,  but  I  do  know  that  nine  out  of 
every  ten  are  there  because  of  alcohol. 

But  that  third  link  is  the  one  I  want  to  refer  to  now. 
Listen  to  me !  Tonight  there  are  two  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  of  our  boys  and  girls  with  ball  and  chain  attached 
to  their  ankles !  Two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  of  our 
boys  and  girls  in  the  penitentiary  tonight !  I  do  not  mean 
jails  and  workhouses,  but  in  the  penitentiaries.  Do  you 
wonder  that  a  woman's  head  is  bowed  with  shame  and  her 
heart  broken?  She  went  down  to  the  very  gates  of  death 
that  she  tnight  bring  back  a  man  who  was  true  enough 
and  strong  enough  to  defend  the  flag.  But,  Oh,  my 
brethren,  look  you !  Our  heads  are  bowed  with  shame  and 
our  hearts  broken  and  bleeding,  for  sixty-two  out  of 
every  one  hundred  men  in  the  penitentiaries  tonight  were 
accursed  by  the  saloon  before  they  became  criminals. 

Let  me  tell  you  what  I  saw.  A  feeble  old  woman — not 
as  old  as  I  am,  but  with  bowed  head  and  bent  back.  She 
made  her  feeble  way  down  the  corridor  in  murderer's  row 
in  Joliet  prison.  I  saw  her  there  a  few  weeks  ago.  She 
came  along  murderer's  row  until  she  stood  in  front  of  a 
grated  cell,  then  put  her  thin  lips  up  and  kissed  a  big, 
strapping  fellow  on  the  other  side  of  the  bars.  She  turned 
away  and  would  have  fallen ;  I  helped  her,  and  she  began 

[414] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

to  cry,  "Doesn't  God  know?  Doesn't  God  know?  He  was 
drunk  when  he  did  it ;  he  is  not  to  blame.  His  father  was 
a  drunkard, — and  he  must  hang !"  And  then  when  she  was 
quiet  again,  when  I  had  helped  her  to  get  quiet  the  best  I 
could,  she  began  pacing  up  and  down  on  the  green  grass 
and  wringing  her  hands,  crying,  "Doesn't  God  know? 
Doesn't  God  know?  That  is  my  oldest  boy,  my  first-born 
son  ;  but  I  have  two  other  boys  younger  than  he.  Must  they 
go  the  same  way?" 

Oh,  my  America,  will  you  listen  to  us,  the  motherhood  of 
the  land,  while  we  say  as  she  did,  "You  have  our  firstborn. 
Listen,  I  plead  with  you,  do  you  not  know  it?  You  have 
our  firstborn  boys  in  your  penitentiaries  and  asylums  be- 
cause of  the  licensed  saloon,  but  we  have  other  boys,  boys 
in  school,  baby  boys  in  the  cradle, — must  they  go  the  same 
way?  Will  you  continue  to  take  our  boys  from  our  arms, 
grind  them  through  your  saloons  into  the  penitentiary,  and 
from  the  penitentiary  into  hell?  It  is  a  serious  matter,  it 
is  important  not  only  for  the  defense  of  the  flag,  but  for 
the  work  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  that  something  be  done 
to  save  our  boys  from  utter  destruction." 

You  know  I  wonder  about  you  men.  The  only  rational 
excuse  you  have  ever  given  us  for  going  into  partnership 
with  rum  was  that  it  was  for  revenue.  You  have  driven 
us  to  take  a  firm  stand  these  days.  There  is  not  a  right- 
minded  woman  in  the  United  States  of  America  who  would 
ever  have  dreamed  of  asking  for  the  ballot  if  you  men  folk 
had  done  your  duty  by  your  own  home.  (Applause.)  But 
you  did  not  do  it.  We  would  rather  be  at  home  with  the 
cradle  by  the  fireside ;  we  love  the  dear,  sweet  joys  with 
which  you  surround  us ;  we  love  the  fireside  and  all  those 
things  that  we  receive  from  the  hands  of  love,  but  you 
have  made  this  impossible,  and  today  we  are  clamoring  for 
the  ballot,  and  some  of  you  are  astonished  that  we  ask  it. 
Do  you  think  we  are  asking  for  the  ballot  for  the  sake  of 

[415] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

cleaning  up  politics?  As  near  as  I  can  make  out  politics 
is  almost  more  than  you  men  can  clean  up.  No,  we  are 
asking  for  the  ballot  that  we  may  defend  our  own  business, 
and  when  we  get  the  ballot  you  may  just  as  well  know 
what  we  will  do  with  it.  We  will  be  true  to  our  house- 
keeping instincts,  we  will  just  roll  that  ballot  into  a  mop 
and  wipe  up  the  last  inch  of  wet  territory  round  about  us. 
(Applause.) 

But  I  cannot  understand  you  men.  The  only  rational 
excuse  you  ever  gave  us  for  going  into  partnership  with 
the  liquor  traffic  was  that  it  was  for  revenue.  And  you 
spent  ninety  millions  to  take  care  of  the  feeble-minded  last 
year,  and  ninety-five  millions  more  to  take  care  of  the 
insane,  and  two  hundred  and  sixty  millions  more  to  take 
care  of  the  criminals — all  in  one  year.  That  is  three  links 
in  the  chain — I  have  said  nothing  about  poverty.  There  are 
four  hundred  and  forty-five  millions  that  you  have  spent 
in  one  year,  and  the  revenue  from  whisky  in  that  time  was 
four  hundred  millions,  so  you  are  forty-five  millions  out 
of  pocket.  Looks  like  bad  financering  to  me — if  nothing 
more.  I  cannot  understand  you ;  I  have  given  it  up.  I  have 
tried  to  find  out  what  you  did  with  that  money.  I  have 
asked  mayors  and  councilmen,  "What  do  you  do  with  the 
money  that  comes  from  the  liquor  traffic,"  and  about  seven 
times  out  of  eight  the  first  use  they  make  of  it  is — "pave- 
ments!"  Do  you  get  that?  This  United  States  of  America 
must  have  "pavements !"  We  women  v/ould  rather  walk 
in  mud  up  to  our  necks  than  walk  over  "pavements"  builded 
with  the  souls  of  our  sons.  (Applause.)  This  United  States 
of  America  must  have  "pavements,"  for  it  cannot  exist 
without  "pavements."  Let  me  speak  for  my  sister  women. 
We  will  go  out  into  the  streets  and  build  pavements  with 
our  own  hands  if  you  will  close  the  saloons  and  save  to  us 
our  boys.     (Applause.)     But  you  must  have  "pavements," 

[416] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

even  though  they  are  built  across  the  lost  souls  of  our 
children. 

We  have  done  the  best  we  could.  We  hold  our  Better 
Baby  contests,  our  race  degeneracy  conventions,  we  have 
medical  inspection  in  public  schools,  and  you  helped  us  to 
get  an  anti-child  labor  law,  and  here  in  Indiana,  strong, 
splendid,  intelligent  Indiana,  you  have  made  it  impossible 
for  the  defective  to  multiply  his  kind,  and  already  we  are 
asking  for  a  clean  bill  of  health  for  every  man  who 
approaches  the  marriage  altar, — but  you  are  making  more 
degenerates  in  the  saloons  in  one  day  than  we  can  correct 
in  six  months.  It  is  treating  symptoms :  it  is  not  doing  any 
good.  You  cannot  correct  degeneracy.  My  profession  has 
discovered  long  ago  that  aside  from  the  little  help  that 
comes  from  the  gold  cure,  there  actually  is  no  remedy,  no 
way  of  wiping  out  the  effect  of  the  licensed  saloon,  no 
antidote  save  one,  and  that  is  the  blood  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  It  takes  a  miracle  to  undo  the  mischief  the  saloon 
has  wrought  in  the  father,  or  in  the  child  of  a  drinking 
father. 

Let  me  plead  with  you  once  more.  Give  us  Nation-wide 
prohibition.  I  took  a  baby  from  his  mother's  arms  at  a 
meeting  the  other  day,  and  I  held  him  in  my  arms  while  I 
pleaded  for  the  thing  that  would  save  him.  Look  at  the 
little  baby, — he  cannot  stand  by  himself,  the  most  helpless 
creature  in  the  world,  he  has  no  language  but  a  cry.  Can 
you  not  hear  the  baby  crying  its  protest  against  the  thing 
that  is  converting  his  father  into  a  drunkard? 

Can  you  not  hear  the  mother  crying  her  protest  against 
the  thing  that  is  destroying  her  home?  Can  you  not  hear 
our  great  Leader  calling  down  from  the  throne  of  God, 
calling  you  to  help  Him  in  the  business  of  saving  souls? 

I  feel  as  I  often  do — ready  to  sit  down,  but  that  as  the 
boys  say,  I  have  not  yet  "put  it  over,"  for  I  believe  if  I 
could  put  out  of  my  heart  into  yours  the  feeling  of  shame, 

[417] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

the  keen  pain  that  has  come  to  the  motherhood  of  this 
land,  caused  by  this  nefarious  traffic  in  alcohol, — I  believe 
you  would  do  something.  There  are  enough  people  in  this 
room  right  now  to  make  Indiana  absolutely  dry.  Can  you 
not  hear  the  motherhood  of  this  land  pleading  with  you? 
Indiana  has  given  some  wonderful  sons  to  the  old  flag,  but 
you  could  give  more,  more ;  more  great  men,  if  only  you 
would  protect  your  boys,  if  only  you  would  protect  this 
woman  business  of  man-raising,  or  if  you  would  even  get 
out  of  the  way  we  could  do  it  better  than  we  do  now. 
(Applause.) 

Down  in  Doctor  Landrith's  country  is  a  wonderful  moun- 
tain that  protects  a  little  valley,  and  in  that  valley  is  a  little 
house  made  famous  by  Charles  Egbert  Craddock  in  her 
story,  "The  Star  in  the  Valley."  In  that  house  lived  a 
mother  with  her  little  boy.  She  was  beginning  to  look  for- 
ward to  the  time  when  her  man-child  would  be  her  sup- 
port, when  she  would  be  protected  by  him.  But  that  boy 
heard,  as  every  boy  does,  the  call  of  the  world — and  he 
answered  it.  He  said,  *T  must  go."  He  had  the  love  for 
adventure  that  comes  to  all  boys,  he  heard  the  call  of  the 
world,  and  he  answered  it.  Going  down  the  little  gravel 
path  she  followed  him,  begging  him  to  stay,  for  she  felt  he 
was  safe  in  that  little  home,  but  he  pulled  away  and  was 
gone.  She  called  after  him,  "If  you  must  go,  know  that 
mother  will  keep  a  light  burning  in  the  window  so  that 
when  you  come  home  you  cannot  miss  your  way."  Oh,  the 
mothers  who  are  keeping  lights  burning  tonight  in  the 
windows,  that  some  boy  may  find  his  way  home !  She 
called  again,  "If  you  must  go,  and  mother  should  die  before 
you  come  home,  then  mother  will  stay  at  the  great  gate  of 
Heaven  and  prop  it  open  so  that  Avhen  you  come  you  can 
not  miss  your  way." 

Out  there  in  the  cold,  wide  world  this  boy  became  bound 
by  the  shackles  of  sin;  the  years  go  by,  more  shame  and 

[418] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

sin, — a  man  lost  to  the  world.  Down  there  his  mother 
waited  and  prayed  as  she  waited,  that  her  boy  might  come, 
—and  the  light  burns.  Then  God  called  her  to  come  and 
sit  at  the  great  gate  of  Heaven.  There  are  mothers  up 
there  tonight  who  have  boys  down  here  who  are  lost — 
because  of  the  licensed  saloon.  Neighboring  hands  did  what 
they  could,  and  kept  that  light  burning,  waiting  for  that 
boy  to  come.  Are  you  keeping  a  light  burning  for  some 
other  mother's  son? 

One  day  there  came  a  tap  at  my  hotel  door,  and  one  of 
the  guides  said  there  was  a  man  down  on  the  mountainside 
who  would  not  talk,  and  they  were  afraid  he  was  dead. 
I  went  with  him  and  we  found  he  was  not  dead,  so  we  lifted 
him  up  and  laid  him  on  the  bed  in  that  Httle  house  called 
"The  Star  in  the  Valley."  After  a  little  he  came  to,  seemed 
to  realize  where  he  was,  managed  to  get  out  of  bed  and  to 
the  window  where  the  Hght  was  kept  burning,  crying,  "Oh 
God,  let  me  in!"  Then  his  arms  relaxed,  and  the  body  we 
picked  up  from  the  floor  was  very  quiet  and  growing  cold. 
We  put  him  back  upon  the  bed,  said  a  prayer  over  him, 
and  you  and  I,  who  believe  in  the  blessed  Son  of  God, 
beheve  that  the  mother's  prayer  was  answered  and  that 
that  sin-cursed  soul  wandered  through  the  gates  and  is  at 
home  tonight.  But  I  wish  my  America  could  see  tonight 
what  was  lost — all  the  years  of  that  wasted  life !  the  man ! 
the  home !  I  wish  my  America  could  see  away  down  the 
pathway  of  Time  nineteen  hundred  years,  and  see  the  Baby 
born  in  a  stable,  lying  against  the  great  heart  of  Mother 
Mary,  the  holy  example  of  blessed  motherhood;  see  Him 
growing  up  there  in  Galilee,  follow  Him  to  Calvary,  and 
think  of  Him  at  the  door  of  Heaven,  propping  it  open  that 
the  boys  of  my  America  might  not  lose  their  way.  And 
think  once  more,  see  the  shadow  of  the  American  saloon 
falling  athwart  that  light  from  Calvary,  and  in  the  dark- 
ness of  that  shadow  the  American  boys  are  lost  eternally. 

[419] 


Speeches  of  The  Flying  Squadron 

Men,  Oh,  men  of  my  America,  you  have  voted  to  license 
the  traffic  in  rum  and  you  are  defeating  our  business,  bring- 
ing the  mother's  gray  hair  in  sorrow  to  the  grave,  and 
destroying  the  American  home ! 

And  you  are  doing  more  than  that,  you  are  defeating  the 
flag,  for  which  we  need  men  to  fight  tonight.  We  need 
men,  I  say,  not  junk !  You  are  cheating  the  American  flag, 
and  you  are  cheating  America's  God,  for  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
poured  out  His  blessed  blood  on  Calvary  that  your  boys 
might  have  life  eternal,  and  you  grind  them  through  the 
saloon  into  eternal  death.  What  will  you  say  when  the 
roll  is  called  up  yonder? 

I  thank  you  for  your  attention.    (Applause.) 


[420] 


The  Flight  of  the 
Flying  Squadron 

400  pages;  fine  silk  cloth 

The  Story  of  a  Great  Campaign 


1500  meetings!  3500  addresses! 
1,500,000  people!  65,000  miles! 
Rich  in  incident.  Alive  with 
human  interest.  A  powerful  plea 
for  the  abolition  of  the  liquor 
traffic 

By  Governor  J.  Frank  Hanly  and 
Oliver  Wayne  Stewart 


Now  on  the  press^before  publication  $1.25 — 
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